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THE    REV  MASON    L  WEEMS 
Died  -1825 


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PARSON  WEEMS 


A  Biographical  and  Critical  Study 


BY 

LAWRENCE  C.  WROTH 


The  Eichelberger  Book  Company 
baltimore,  md. 
1911 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
LAWRENCE  C.  WROTH 


.  I 


BALTIMORE,  aiD.,  C.  S.   A- 


/  dedicate  this  hook 

to  the  memory  of 

my  brother 

Thomas  Page  IV roth 


PREFACE 

There  needs  no  apology  for  writing  as  fully 
as  the  material  available  will  allow  the  life  of 
that  American  author  whose  works  for  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  more 
frequently  reprinted  and  more  widely  distrib- 
uted and  read  than  those  of  any  other  native 
writer  during  the  same  period.  Mason  Locke 
Weems  published  his  first  pamphlet  In  1792, 
and  in  1800  he  brought  out  his  Life  of  Wash- 
ington, his  best  known  contribution  to  the  lit- 
erature of  his  period.  From  this  date  until 
the  Civil  War,  his  works  were  published  and 
republished  with  a  frequency  that  has  a  paral- 
lel only  in  the  many  Issues  of  the  modern  best 
sellers,  a  marked  divergence,  however,  lying 
in  the  circumstance  that  In  the  case  of  the  lat- 
ter the  necessity  for  republication  generally 
dies  with  the  same  year  that  sees  their  first  issue. 
Duyckinck '  calls  Weems  the  "  LIvy  of  the 

^  Duyckinck,  G.  L.,  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature. 
2  V.    N.  Y.     1855. 


PREFACE 


common  people,"  but  this  designation  errs  in 
its  exclusiveness,  for  he  was  nearly  as  much 
appreciated  by  the  upper  classes  of  society  as 
by  the  mechanic  and  the  ploughboy.  Per- 
haps the  most  obvious,  although  not  the  most 
important,  claim  that  he  has  to  our  attention 
is  the  fact  that  upon  his  authority  rests  the 
best  known  of  American  hero  tales — the  story 
of  George  Washington  and  the  Cherry  Tree. 
His  life  has  never  been  written  with  any  re- 
gard for  accuracy  and  fullness,  and  this  is  an 
attempt  to  do  so  within  the  limits  imposed  by 
a  seemingly  impenetrable  veil  which  covers 
many  of  the  years  of  his  life  and  many  of  his 
actions  and  motives. 

The  absence  of  the  vagabond  element  from 
the  lives  of  the  masters  of  American  literature 
distresses  many  most  properly  brought  up  per- 
sons. Whitman  allowed  his  natural  bent  in 
that  direction  to  become  an  artificial  cult  of 
the  unconventional,  with  the  result  that  he  be- 
came in  a  fashion  the  most  conventional  of 
men.  Poe  had  it  almost  alone  of  those  whose 
feet  are  on  the  summits.     The  rest  of  them 


PREFACE 


have  been  for  the  greater  part  quiet,  scholarly 
men  in  whom  the  high  lights  are  dulled  or 
quite  obscured  by  the  library  dust  which  en- 
velopes them.  The  heart  that  thrills  at  the 
thought  of  Marlowe  brawling  in  a  London 
tavern,  or  of  Villon  raking  the  streets  of 
Paris  with  his  "  score  of  loyal  cut-throats," 
resents  the  absence  of  the  vagabond,  or  even 
the  merely  unconventional,  element  from  the 
American  Parnassus.  On  the  lower  slopes  of 
the  classic  mount,  however,  there  are  found 
certain  ones  of  this  less  formal  type,  and 
Mason  Locke  Weems  is  of  the  company. 

For  thirty  years  there  was  no  more  familiar 
figure  on  the  roads  of  the  Southern  States 
than  this  book  peddler  and  author  who,  pro- 
vided gipsy-like  with  horse  and  wagon,  his 
wares  and  his  fiddle,  travelled  his  long  route 
year  after  year,  sleeping  in  wayside  inn,  farm- 
house or  forest,  fiddling,  writing,  selling 
books,  living  in  the  open  and  learning  some 
new  road  lore,  field  lore  or  wisdom  of  the 
woods  with  each  day  that  passed.  He  makes  a 
bit  of  color  in  an  oftentimes  dreary  landscape. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

It  would  be  difficult  for  the  author  to  men- 
tion by  name  all  of  those  who  have  been  of 
service  to  him  in  the  preparation  of  this  book. 
It  must  be  sufficient  that  he  acknowledge  with 
gratitude  help  from  many  persons  in  different 
parts  of  this  country  and  England,  naming 
only  those  three  whose  assistance  was  of  such 
a  nature  that  it  could  not  pass  unmarked. 
These  are  Miss  Elizabeth  Chew  Williams,  of 
Baltimore,  a  great-great  niece  of  Parson 
Weems;  Mr.  Walter  B.  Norris,  of  the  teach- 
ing staff  at  the  United  States  Naval  Academy, 
and  the  late  Mr.  Richard  D.  Fisher,  of  Balti- 
more, whose  contribution  was  none  the  less 
valuable  in  that  it  consisted  chiefly  of  en- 
couragement when  that  was  most  needed. 


PARSON  WEEMS 


I 
EARLY  LIFE 

Mason  Locke  Weems  was  born  October  i, 
1759,  at  Marshes  Seat,'"  the  family  home- 
stead near  Herring  Creek  in  Anne  Arundel 
County,  Maryland.  He  was  one  of  the 
younger  of  the  nineteen  children  of  David 
Weems,  the  chief  progenitor  of  the  family  in 
America.  This  David,  his  brother  James  and 
his  sister  Williamina,  were  the  children  of  a 
younger  brother  of  David,'  third  Earl  of 
Wemyss,  the  representative  of  a  family  which 

^*  In  the  will  of  David  Weems,  the  name  of  the  plantation 
is  given  as  above,  "  Marshes  Seat."  In  the  Rent  Rolls  of 
Anne  Arundel  County  it  is  likewise  so  called.  It  is  prob- 
able that  as  time  went  on  the  name  came  to  be  carelessly 
rendered  as  "  Marshall  Seat,"  for  this  is  how  the  later  gen- 
erations of  the  family  pronounce  and  spell  it. 

^As  is  the  case  with  many  early  American  families 
there  is  some  uncertainty  in  the  identification  of  the  emi- 
grant ancestor,  but  the  relationship  as  given  in  the  text  is 
said  to  be  correct  by  H.  H.  Bellas,  Esq.,  in  his  MSS.  notes 
on  the  Weems  or  Wemyss  family,  in  possession  of  Miss 
Harriet  Reynolds,  Bradshaw,  Md. 


la  PARSON  fVEEMS 

traced  Its  ancestry  to  the  Macduff  whom 
Shakespeare  has  made  memorable  in  his  great 
tragedy.  Wllllamlna  Wemyss  '  married  Will- 
iam Moore,  Esq.,  of  Moore  Hall,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  became  the  mother  of  a  long  line 
of  Moores,  Cadwaladers,  Goldsboroughs, 
Ridgeleys  and  Smiths.  Her  daughter,  Re- 
becca Moore,  married  Dr.  William  Smith,  a 
"  father  "  of  the  Episcopal  Church  In  Amer- 
ica, and  as  Provost  of  the  College  of  Philadel- 
phia, eminent  among  the  learned  men  of  his 
day. 

David  Weems  (the  Maryland  branch  of 
the  family  soon  dropped  the  ancient  spelling 
of  the  name)  was  resident  in  Maryland  cer- 
tainly as  early  as  1729,  for  in  that  year  the 
farm  upon  which  he  is  living  is  bequeathed 
him  In  the  will  of  his  uncle.  Dr.  William 
Locke,*  a  familiar  name  In  the  local  annals 

'See  Life  of  Rev.  William  Smith,  D.  D.  By  Horace 
Wemyss  Smith. 

*  Dr.  William  Locke  is  said  to  have  been  the  maternal 
uncle  of  the  Weems  children  for  whom  he  provided.  His 
will,  in  which  he  speaks  of  them  as  "  cousins,"  is  to  be 
found  in  Book  20,  Liber  CC3,  Folio  480,  Office  Registrar 
of  Wills,  Anne  Arundel  County,  Annapolis,  Md. 


EARLY  LIFE  13 


of  Anne  Arundel  County.  Family  tradition 
says  that  Dr.  Locke  brought  David,  James 
and  Williamina  to  America  in  their  childhood 
and  brought  them  up  in  his  house.  However 
this  may  be  It  Is  certain  that  he  was  exceed- 
ingly generous  to  them  in  the  distribution  of 
his  property  at  his  death  In  1732. 

In  1742/  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Dr. 
Locke,  the  Registrar  of  St.  James'  Parish, 
Anne  Arundel  County,  records  In  bad  spelling 
and  worse  English  that  the  rector  of  All 
Saints'  Parish,  Calvert  County,  married  by 
license  David  Weems  and  "  Mrs.  Easter 
Hill."  "  One  finds  this  lady  to  be  Hester, 
daughter  of  Abell  and  Susannah  Hill,  born  In 
St.  James'  Parish  In  17 17.  It  Is  from  the 
nineteen  children  of  David  and  Hester  Weems 
that  are  descended  the  greater  part  of  those 
who  to-day  bear  the  name  In  all  parts  of  the 
country. 

°  Parish  Register  of  St.  James  Parish,  Anne  Arundel 
County,  in  Maryland  Diocesan  Library,  Baltimore,  or  copy 
in  Maryland  Historical  Society  Library,  Baltimore. 

'  It  was  David,  the  son  of  these  two,  who  married  Mar- 
garet Harrison,  not  the  elder,  as  is  often  stated. 
2 


14  PARSON  WEEMS 

There  Is  a  scant  supply  of  facts  relating  to 
the  boyhood  of  Mason  Locke  Weems,  for, 
with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  incidents 
of  doubtful  authenticity,  the  whole  of  his 
early  life  is  an  unknown  period  in  his  history. 
We  know,  however,  from  that  delightful 
storehouse  of  gossip  about  people,  places  and 
things,  Bishop  Meade's  Old  Churches,  Min- 
isters and  Families  of  Virginia^  that  he  was 
at  one  time  an  inmate  of  the  house  of  a  Mr. 
Jenifer  of  Charles  County,  and  it  is  likely  that 
this  was  the  well-known  Daniel  of  St.  Thomas 
Jenifer,  one  of  that  group  of  sturdy  states- 
men and  patriots  which  the  Revolution 
brought  out  in  Maryland.  If  this  surmise  is 
correct,  the  source  of  the  glowing  patriotism 
of  the  author  of  the  Life  of  Washington  is 
clear.  Weems,  indeed,  was  one  of  the  ear- 
liest of  those  whom  we  have  come  in  later 
years  to  designate  as  "  Jingoes." 

Happily  enough,  the  single  incident  of  his 
boyhood  which  rests  upon   good  traditional 

'  Meade,  William,  Old  churches,  ministers  and  families 
of  Virginia.    2  v.     Phila.,  1857.     Vol.  3,  p.  234  et  supra. 


EARLY  LIFE  15 


authority  Is  one  that  bears  witness  to  the  early 
formation  of  a  benevolence  of  character 
which  marked  him  throughout  his  later  years. 
Curious  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  series  of 
nightly  absences,  members  of  the  Jenifer  fam- 
ily followed  him  upon  one  of  his  regular  ex- 
cursions into  the  surrounding  forest.  Coming 
after  some  time  to  a  tumble-down  shanty, 
they  were  astonished  to  find  him  within,  the 
center  of  a  group  of  poor  children  of  the 
neighborhood  to  whom  he  was  imparting  the 
rudiments  of  common  learning.  Weems' 
sympathy  and  patience  with  the  poor  and  Ig- 
norant is  always  a  beautiful  trait  in  his  char- 
acter. 

With  a  few  more  to  his  credit,  this  anec- 
dote is  told  of  him  by  Bishop  Meade  in  order 
to  offset  the  Impression  made  by  the  further 
account  which  he  gives  of  this  lad  grown  to 
manhood.  Bishop  Meade  was  an  austere, 
outspoken  man,  and  the  picture  of  orthodoxy 
in  manners  and  religion.  Influenced  by  the 
absence  of  a  saving  elasticity  in  the  manners 
of  his  times,  he  was  unable  to  allow  the  good 


1 6  PARSON  WEEMS 

side  of  Parson  Weems  to  make  atonement 
for  those  of  his  qualities  which  he  felt  to  be 
bad.  In  estimating  Weems'  character,  he  was 
compelled  to  put  In  the  balance  every  ounce 
of  Christian  charity  which  he  possessed,  and 
In  spite  of  his  obvious  effort  for  fair  judg- 
ment, or  perhaps  because  of  it,  he  succeeds 
only  in  leaving  us  a  negatively  damning  char- 
acterization of  one  whom  he  was  certain  to 
misunderstand.  A  generation  less  in  bonds 
to  conventionality  and  seeing  events  in  a  longer 
perspective,  studies  the  life  of  Weems  with 
a  more  generous  appreciation. 

At  an  early  age,*  probably  sometime  in  his 
fourteenth  year,  Weems  went  abroad  to  study 
medicine,  and  for  three  years  this  purpose 
held  him  In  London  and  at  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  What  use  he  made  In  later  life 
of  his  acquirements  in  medicine  is  absolutely 
unknown.     He  is  spoken  of '  as  Dr.  Mason 

*  Allen,  the  Rev.  Ethan,  MSS.  history  of  the  church  in 
Maryland.  4  v.  in  the  Maryland  Diocesan  Library,  Balti- 
more.    (Hereafter  referred  to  as  the  Allen  MSS.) 

"  Calendar  of  Franklin  papers.  No.  XXXVIII,  96,  Vol.  II, 
p.  460. 


EARLY  LIFE  17 


Weems  many  years  afterwards,  and  in  certain 
notes  '"  which  the  writer  has  examined,  it  is 
stated  that  he  served  for  some  months  as 
surgeon  on  a  British  ship  of  war.  If  this  be 
so  it  was  doubtless  his  aversion  to  service 
against  the  struggling  colonies  which  brought 
him  home  to  America  in  1776,  for  it  is  gen- 
erally believed  and  stated  that  he  spent  the 
period  of  the  Revolution  in  this  country.  The 
absence  of  all  clue  to  his  movements,  how- 
ever, during  the  years  of  war  is  the  despair  of 
those  who  have  tried  to  bring  the  events  of 
his  life  into  orderly  sequence.  A  plausible  as- 
sumption is  that  he  was  engaged  in  the  prac- 
tice of  his  profession  during  these  years,  but 
it  is  an  assumption  only. 

He  next  appears  to  view  in  the  year  17S2, 
at  which  time  he  returned  to  England  to  ob- 
tain Holy  Orders  from  the  Anglican  bishops. 
Probably  because  peace  had  not  been  de- 
clared between  England  and  America,  he  was 
forced  to  travel  by  way  of  France,  for  in 
March,  1782,  the  consul  at  Nantes  writes  to 


10 


Allen  MSS. 


1 8  PARSON  WEEMS 

Franklin "  for  a  passport  for  Dr.  Mason 
Weems  ""  and  Mr.  Manifold,  who  go  to  Eng- 
land on  business. 

"  Calendar  of  Franklin  papers.     See  note  9,  above. 

"*  It  is  this  use  of  the  title  "  Doctor  "  which  makes  it  seem 
probable  that  Weems,  during  the  past  few  years,  had  been 
in  a  sufficiently  active  practise  of  medicine  to  become  gen- 
erally known  as  a  physician.  Of  course,  the  term  would 
not  have  been  applied  for  any  other  reason.  Even  if  his 
intention  of  taking  Holy  Orders  had  been  declared,  he 
would  not  have  been  called  "  Doctor  "  before  ordination. 


II 

HIS  ORDINATION 

The  story "  of  Weems'  efforts  to  obtain 
ordination  in  England  forms  an  interesting 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  American  Epis- 
copal Church.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  idea  of  the  English  Church  existing 
abroad  other  than  as  a  mission  conducted  by 
Englishmen  was  unthought  of  in  Britain  save 
as  a  theory  which  was  of  doubtful  practica- 
bility. There  were  no  bishops  in  America, 
and  it  was  clearly  seen  there  that  if  the  Ameri- 
can Church  was  ever  to  be  anything  but  a 
mission  dependent  upon  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, it  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  al- 
lowed a  separate  episcopate  and  an  individual 
corporate  existence.      Recognizing  this   fact, 

^^  Bishop  White,  Memoirs  of  the  church;  Hawkins,  Mis- 
sions of  the  Church  of  England ;  Cross,  Anglican  episcopate 
and  the  American  colonies ;  McMaster,  History  of  the 
people  of  the  U.  S. ;  Foster,  Century  of  American  diplo- 
macy; Franklin  correspondence;  Adams  correspondence, 
etc. 


20  PARSON  WEEMS 

the  clergy  in  America  in  the  colonial  era  had 
appealed  more  than  once  for  a  bishop  of  their 
own,  and  while  Weems  at  this  later  day  was 
striving  for  the  lower  orders  of  the  ministry, 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Seabury  of  Connecticut  was 
in  England  begging  for  consecration  to  the 
episcopate.  Both  of  them  were  met  by  the 
unanswerable  reply  that  the  law  of  the  realm 
permitted  ordination  only  to  those  who  could 
take  the  Oath  of  Allegiance  to  the  Crown  of 
England.  It  was  necessary  to  wait,  but  in 
the  meantime  there  were  divers  agencies  work- 
ing in  the  interests  of  the  struggling  church 
in  America. 

Associated  with  Weems  in  his  appeal  for 
ordination  was  Edward  Gantt,  Jr.,  a  young 
Marylander  who  afterwards  became  prom- 
inent in  the  church  of  his  native  State.  Not 
daunted  by  the  refusal  of  the  bishops  to  admit 
them  to  orders,  they  petitioned  Benjamin 
Franklin,"  then  at  the  French  court,  for  ad- 
vice in  their  extremity,  but  that  usually  saga- 
cious man  was  unable  to  help  them.     Indeed, 


13 


Franklin  correspondence,  any  edition. 


HIS  ORDINATION  2i 

his  letter  of  reply  contained  distinctly  poor 
counsel,  and  showed  that  he  held  a  very  super- 
ficial conception  of  the  requirements  of  the 
situation.  He  suggested  that  the  candidates 
should  make  shift  to  do  without  regular  ordi- 
nation as  they  should  be  forced  to  do  anyhow 
If  the  British  Isles  were  to  be  swept  away 
by  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic.  For  a  man  of 
his  greatness,  this  letter  '*  seems  peculiarly  In- 
ept, although  it  is  written  in  his  usual  shrewd 
and  entertaining  fashion.  It  Is  evident  that 
Apostolic  Succession  and  Historic  Episcopate 
were  mere  scholastic  terms  to  the  great  Frank- 
lin, churchman  though  he  was. 

"  Here  follows  an  abbreviated  form  of  the  last  part  of 
Franklin's  letter:  "If  the  British  Isles  were  sunk  in  the 
Sea  (and  the  Surface  of  this  Globe  has  suffered  greater 
changes),  you  would  probably  take  some  such  method  as 
this;  and  if  they  persist  in  denying  you  ordination,  'tis  the 
same  thing.  An  hundred  years  hence,  when  people  are 
more  enlightened,  it  will  be  wondered  at,  that  Men  in 
America,  qualified  by  their  Learning  and  Piety  to  pray  for 
and  instruct  their  Neighbors,  should  not  be  permitted  to  do 
it  till  they  had  made  a  Voyage  of  six  thousand  Miles  out 
and  home,  to  ask  leave  of  a  cross  old  Gentleman  at  Canter- 
bury; who  seems  by  your  Account  to  have  as  little  Regard 
for  the  Souls  of  the  People  of  Maryland,  as  King  William's 


22  PARSON  fVEEMS 


A  more  practical  view  of  the  situation  was 
taken  by  John  Adams  ''  at  The  Hague,  for 
he  spoke  of  the  dilemma  of  his  young  country- 
men to  the  Danish  minister  in  Holland  with 
the  result  that  in  April,  1784,  an  offer  was 
made  by  the  Bishops  of  the  Danish  Church 
to  ordain  them  by  their  rite.  Adams  com- 
municated this  offer  to  Congress  and  copies 
of  the  correspondence  were  sent  to  the  gov- 
ernors of  all  the  States.  Neither  in  the  case 
of  Weems  nor  of  any  other  American  candi- 
date, however,  was  the  offer  accepted.  It  is 
probable  that  uncertainty  as  to  how  the  Eng- 
lish Church  would  pronounce  upon  the  valid- 
Attorney-General,  Seymour,  had  for  those  of  Virginia. 
The  Reverend  Commissary  Blair  (applied  to  Seymour  to 
draw  up  the  charter  of  a  college  which  by  the  Queen's 
grace  was  to  be  built  in  Virginia.  Seymour  opposed  the 
money  grant,  and  in  the  argument  that  ensued  between  him 
and  Blair,  the  latter  said)  that  the  People  of  Virginia  had 
souls  to  be  saved  as  well  as  the  People  of  England."  (The 
Attorney-General  thus  replied)  "Souls!"  says  he,  "damn 
your  Souls.     Make  Tobacco." 

This  letter  is  dated  Passy,  July  i8,  1784,  and  it  is  written 
in  reply  to  one  from  Weems  and  Gantt  received  two  days 
before. 

"Bishop  White,  Memoirs  of  the  church,  p.  327  et  supra. 


HIS  ORDINATION  23 

ity  of  Danish  orders  made  the  candidates 
wary  of  the  substitute  proposed  by  Adams, 
and,  moreover,  it  was  felt  that  ultimately  their 
disabilities  would  be  removed  by  act  of  Par- 
liament. 

In  the  hope  of  liberal  action  by  Parliament, 
the  American  candidates  were  not  disap- 
pointed, for  on  August  13,  1784,  an  Enabling 
Act "  was  passed  which  made  possible  the 
omission  of  the  "  Oath  "  in  the  ordination  of 
persons  intending  to  serve  in  foreign  lands. 
And,  finally,  after  a  residence  abroad  for  the 
purpose,  of  two  years  and  a  half,  Weems, 
on  September  5,  1784,  was  ordained  to  the 
diaconate  by  the  Bishop  of  Chester,  acting 
under  the  Bishop  of  London,  in  the  Duke 
Street  Chapel,  Westminster,  and  one  week 
later,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  admitted 
him  to  the  priesthood."  Among  those  or- 
dained with  him  was  his  compatriot,  Edward 
Gantt,  Jr.     The  companion  measure,  provid- 

"  Statutes  at  Large,  24  George  III,  Cap.  XXXV. 

"  Certificates  in  the  Maryland  Diocesan  Library,  Balti- 
more, in  keeping  of  the  Records  Committee  of  the  Diocese 
of  Maryland. 


24  PARSON  WEEMS 

ing  for  the  consecration  of  bishops  under  the 
same  conditions,  failed  of  passage  through 
Parliament,  and  it  was  nearly  three  years  be- 
fore Bishop  White  of  Pennsylvania  was  con- 
secrated by  the  English  prelates.  In  the 
meantime.  Dr.  Seabury  had  gone  to  Scotland, 
where  in  November,  1784,  he  was  elevated 
to  the  higher  office  by  bishops  of  the  Episco- 
pal Church  in  that  country. 

In  November,  1784,  was  chartered  the 
"  Corporation  for  the  Relief  of  the  Widows 
and  Children  of  the  Clergy  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  in  Maryland,"  "  and  In  the 
list  of  incorporators  appear  the  names  of 
Mason  Locke  Weems  and  Edward  Gantt,  Jr., 
their  first  appearance  In  any  list  of  clergy  of 
the  Diocese.  Sometime  in  the  same  year, 
Weems  became  rector  of  All  Hallows'  Parish 
in  Anne  Arundel  County. 

The  most  difficult  part  In  the  preparation 
of  the  life  of  Parson  Weems  has  been  the 
determination  of  the  date  and  circumstances 


18 


Acts  of  Maryland  Assembly.     November,  1784. 


HIS  ORDINATION  25 

of  his  ordination.  In  1857,  Bishop  Meade" 
wrote  these  words:  "...  a  doubt  has  been 
entertained  whether  he  ever  was  ordained  a 
minister  of  our  Church,  yet  we  will  take  that 
for  granted,  and  ascribe  to  him  all  that  is 
justly  due."  In  the  second  issue  of  1872,  he 
changes  the  two  latter  clauses  of  his  sentence 
to  read  simply,  "  yet  I  have  ascertained  that 
to  be  a  fact."  Unfortunately,  the  aspersion 
of  the  first  issue  was  only  too  readily  taken 
up,  and  that  by  persons  not  willing  to  "  ascribe 
.  .  .  all  that  is  justly  due,"  for  since  that  time 
there  have  appeared  numerous  articles  in 
which  either  a  similar  tone  was  evident  or  in 
which  the  author  denied  flatly  the  fact  of 
Weems'  ordination,  making  him  out  a  rogue 
of  the  first  order.  The  only  reason  ever 
given  by  the  writers  for  their  remarkable  po- 
sition is  that  his  name  does  not  appear  in  any 
list  of  clergy  ordained  by  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don. The  possibility  of  his  having  derived 
his  orders  from  another  bishop  seems  never 


19 


Meade,  Old  churches,  etc. 


26  PARSON  WEE  MS 

to  have  been  taken  Into  account.  After  cor- 
respondence and  research  in  this  counti*y  and 
Europe,  covering  a  period  of  nearly  two  years, 
the  writer  learned  from  a  letter  In  the  South- 
ern Churchman^'''  written  In  reply  to  one  of 
his  own,  that  a  descendant  of  Edward  Gantt, 
Jr.,  had  In  his  possession  the  ordination  cer- 
tificates given  to  his  ancestor  by  the  Bishop 
of  Chester  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Communication  was  entered  Into  with  the 
proper  authorities  in  England  with  the  result 
that  the  certificates  of  Weems'  ordination 
were  secured  and  placed  on  record  In  the 
Maryland  Diocesan  Library.  It  has  been  a 
particular  pleasure  to  determine  finally  the 
circumstances  of  Weems'  ordination,  for  al- 
though one  must  allow  him  faults,  yet  it  Is 
difficult  to  believe  him  capable  of  Infamy  as 
gross  as  would  have  been  the  false  repre- 
sentation of  himself  as  a  priest  in  the  Church 
of  God. 


20 


Southern  Churchman,  Richmond,   Va.     May  21,   1910, 
p.  20. 


Ill 

THE  PARISH  PRIEST 

For  the  eight  years  following  upon  the  re- 
turn of  Parson  Weems ''  to  Maryland  after 
securing  ordination,  he  was  one  of  the  most 
active  clergymen  in  the  diocese.  He  was  rec- 
tor of  All  Hallows'  Parish  from  1784  until 
1789,  and  during  this  incumbency  he  con- 
ducted in  the  neighborhood  a  school  for  girls. 
He  seems  to  have  held  no  charge  during  part 
of  the  year  1790,  although  his  name  con- 
tinues on  the  clergy  list  of  the  Diocese.  He 
was  rector  of  Westminster  Parish  in  the  same 
county  for  the  two  years  1791  and  1792,  and 
he  was  several  times  elected  to  membership 
on  the  Superintending  Committee  for  the 
Western  Shore,  a  committee  which  in  the 
lack  of  a  bishop  exercised  a  general  super- 
vision of  the  parishes  west  of  the  Chesapeake. 
It  is  clear  from  this  that  he  made  his  person- 

"  Journals  of   Convention  of  the  Diocese  of  Maryland, 
Allen  MSS.,  etc. 


28  PARSON  JVEEMS 

ality  felt  to  some  degree  by  his  brethren  of 
the  clergy. 

Fortunately  for  those  who  are  interested  in 
Weems,  we  are  able  to  know  more  of  his 
life  as  a  parish  priest  in  the  Maryland  of 
1785  than  the  bare  outline  of  the  years  and 
places  of  his  service.  His  neighbor  in  Prince 
George  County,  the  Rev.  William  Duke,"^  was 
one  of  those  persons  who  in  spite  of  the  com- 
parative obscurity  of  their  lives  and  the  un- 
i/mportance  of  their  goings  and  comings,  yet 
deem  it  desirable  to  keep  a  record  of  the 
events  of  each  day  as  it  passes.  Early  in  life 
Duke  had  been  a  Methodist  preacher,  and 
inspired   perhaps,    as  many  of  his   brethren 

^William  Duke,  born  1757,  Baltimore  County;  died 
1843,  Elkton,  Md.  Rector  of  six  Maryland  parishes.  Pro- 
fessor of  Languages  in  St.  John's  College,  Annapolis; 
Principal  of  Charlotte  Hall  School;  Academy  in  Elkton; 
Convention  Preacher ;  member  of  Standing  Committee  of 
Diocese;  published  Hymns,  an  excellent  apologetic,  a  valu- 
able treatise  on  Maryland  religious  history  and  contributed 
to  several  religious  periodicals.  For  full  accounts  of  his 
interesting  life,  see  a  sketch  by  Dr.  Ethan  Allen  in  Sprague's 
Annals  of  the  American  pulpit  (Episcopal),  and  an  article 
by  the  present  writer  in  the  Church  Standard  for  June  20, 
1908. 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  29 


were,  by  the  example  of  John  Wesley,  he  kept 
for  fifty  years  a  diary  of  his  doings  and 
thinkings.  The  Duke  Diary  has  been  saved 
from  the  usual  mischances  of  time  and  care- 
lessness to  be  accorded  an  honored  old  age 
in  the  Maryland  Diocesan  Library.  It  is  a 
rarely  interesting  document,  both  from  a  hu- 
man and  an  historical  standpoint,  and  it  has 
been  the  fortune  of  the  present  writer  to  find 
in  the  course  of  its  badly  written,  yellowed 
pages  sixty-five  places  in  which  is  mentioned 
the  name  of  Parson  Weems.  Many  of  the 
references  to  him  are  of  neither  interest  nor 
importance,  but  an  equal  number  of  them  are 
valuable  in  that  they  bring  us  into  touch  with 
the  sometime  rector  of  All  Hallows'  and 
Westminster  parishes  during  one  of  the  pe- 
riods of  his  life  about  which  the  least  is 
known. 

The  first  mention  of  Weems  found  in  the 
Duke  "  Diary  "  is  this  that  follows:  "  Jan. 
5,  1787.  Crossed  South  River  with  difliculty 
the  wind  blowing  very  hard  and  as  I  passed 
Mr.  W 's  Church  met  him  coming  out. 


30  PARSON  WEEMS 

It  seems  he  preaches  every  other  Friday  night 
for  the  Benefit  of  the  Negroes.  A  charitable 
Attempt.  I  hope  it  will  be  successful.  At 
his  Request  I  promised  to  preach  for  him  on 
the  Sunday  following." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  in  this  day  the  Chris- 
tian bodies  were  generally  careless  of  the  ne- 
groes, and  it  is  a  gem  in  the  crown  of  Parson 
Weems  that  here  and  always  he  had  the  spir- 
itual welfare  of  the  neglected  race  at  heart. 
Ten  years  after  this  the  garrulous  John  Davis 
records  in  his  Travels  in  America  a  conversa- 
tion which  he  held  with  Weems  on  this  very 
subject  of  his  ministry  to  the  blacks.  He 
gives  this  sentence  as  from  the  lips  of  Weems : 
"  Oh,  it  is  sweet  preaching,  when  people  are 
desirous  of  hearing.  Sweet  feeding  the  flock 
of  Christ,  when  they  have  so  good  an  appe- 
tite." Somewhere,  somehow,  and  in  such  a 
degree  as  fully  to  atone  for  other  and  less 
pleasing  characteristics,  Weems  had  acquired 
affection  for  and  interest  in  the  poor  and 
ignorant  of  all  races,  taking  always  the  re- 
jected of  other  men  to  his  heart  and  laboring 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  31 


for  their  uplift  with  large  patience  and  char- 
ity. Even  William  Duke,  godly  and  untiring 
in  good  works  though  he  was,  described  the 
holding  of  a  special  service  for  negroes  as  a 
"  charitable  Attempt,"  and  implied  in  the 
next  sentence  a  doubt  as  to  its  success. 

According  to  promise,  Duke  came  on  the 
following  Sunday  to  preach  at  All  Hallows', 
one  of  the  ancient  parishes  of  Maryland.  He 
stayed  for  several  days  thereafter  with  its 
rector,  and  in  the  course  of  his  visit  they  rode 
from  house  to  house  in  the  neighborhood  pay- 
ing social  calls  on  the  parishioners.  Duke, 
nursed  in  religion  by  Wesley,  Coke  and  Straw- 
bridge,  was  averse  to  the  point  of  crabbed- 
ness  to  the  card  playing,  wine  drinking  and 
dancing  which  went  on,  innocently  enough 
generally,  in  the  Maryland  country  houses,  but 
we  gather  that  Weems  was  either  more  liberal 
in  his  views  or  that  he  was  more  adaptable  to 
circumstances.  When  the  former  on  one  oc- 
casion condemns  even  the  friendly  game  of 
cards,  he  writes  in  the  "  Diary"  that  night: 
"  I  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  singular  in 


32  PARSON  WEEMS 


that  Sentiment,"  and  on  the  following  morn- 
ing he  "  had  some  serious  conversation  with 

Mr.  W on  the  Subject  of  Amusement — 

We  agreed  In  general.  But  I  could  not  yield 
to  the  maxim  of  assuming  the  Complexion 
and  entering  Into  the  Spirit  of  whatever  Com- 
pany you  happen  In — ." 

These  few  days  which  Duke  spent  with 
Weems  are  In  all,  save  details,  the  type  of 
many  later  visits  of  one  to  the  other  of  them. 
They  were  unmarried  and  nearly  of  the  same 
age,  and  In  spite  of  a  wide  difference  In  tem- 
perament, they  had  In  common  many  tastes 
besides  the  Interests  of  their  profession.  We 
find  them  on  sufficiently  friendly  terms  for 
Duke  to  reprove  Weems  for  "  a  fault  which 
he  observed  In  his  character,"  and  for  any- 
thing that  Is  said  to  the  contrary  Weems  took 
the  reproof  In  good  part.  Throughout  the 
"  Diary  "  are  entries  of  this  sort:  "  A  good 
deal  of  talk  with  Weems.  He  drives  Jehu- 
llke,"  or,  ''  Mr.  Weems  called  on  me.  I  took 
a  long  and  agreeable  walk  with  him."  Duke 
was  strict  in  life  and  doctrine,  a  self-taught 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  33 

scholar,  and  withal  a  man  of  great  good  sense. 
In  later  years  he  attained  a  position  of  no 
little  influence  in  the  Diocese,  and  although 
he  never  had  a  parish  of  any  especial  im- 
portance, he  was  the  familiar  friend  and  cor- 
respondent of  two  bishops  and  of  the  leading 
clergy  in  the  Maryland  Church.  That  he 
could  number  William  Duke  among  his 
friends  is  no  small  thing  for  Weems  to 
boast  of. 

It  is  something  of  a  surprise  to  learn  that 
Weems  was  not  popular  with  the  people  of 
the  county,  and  probably  even  of  his  own  par- 
ish of  All  Hallows',  for  about  the  time  of  his 
giving  up  his  rectorship  there,  we  find  Duke 
writing  of  a  visit  to  some  friends  in  the  course 
of  which  the  conversation  turned,  he  says, 
upon  "  the  duties  of  ministers  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  reforming  the  people.  The  Rev'd 
M.  Weems  was  mentioned  and  the  dislike 
and  disapprobation  that  he  meets  with.  As 
he  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  his  zeal  and  in- 
dustry I  could  not  help  attributing  the  oppo- 


34  PARSON  WEEMS 

sition  generally  to  that  diabolical  spirit  which 
is  enmity  against  God." 

One  of  the  characteristics  which  Weems  re- 
tained for  long  years  after  he  had  given  up 
the  ministry  was  his  eagerness  to  preach  or 
pray  anywhere  and  at  any  time.  Deeply  ear- 
nest in  his  desire  to  spread  the  gospel  truth, 
he  was  for  thirty  years  of  his  later  wandering 
life  a  sort  of  unofficial  itinerant,  an  occasional 
missionary.  This  was  his  lifelong  habit.  One 
day  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  him  riding  into 
Upper  Marlboro  with  William  Duke,  who 
that  night  entered  in  his  "  Diary"  the  fact  that 

"  Mr.  W preached  in  the  Ball  room." 

This  was  twenty  years  before  there  was  an 
Episcopal  church  in  Upper  Marlboro,  but 
Weems  never  waited  for  churches;  inn  parlor, 
court  house  steps,  ball  room,  village  green  or 
cottager's  kitchen  were  his  churches  as  often 
as  the  buildings  regularly  consecrated  to  pub- 
lic worship.  An  entry  from  the  "  Diary  " 
illustrates  his  perseverance  in  labors  of  this 
sort  and  his  anxiety  to  serve.  He  and  Duke 
are  speaking  and  praying  in  a  poor  woman's 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  35 

cottage.  The  latter  thus  describes  the  ser- 
vice: "  The  old  woman's  son  Eli  interrupted 
us  several  times.  I  was  sorry  that  Mr.  Weems 
took  so  much  trouble  to  satisfy  him  as  it  only 
made  him  more  petulant." 

Once,  as  we  learn  in  a  letter  from  Dr.  Clag- 
gett  to  William  Duke,  his  ardor  in  the  propa- 
gation of  the  Faith  brought  upon  him  some 
criticism  from  his  brother  clergy.  Dr.  Clag- 
gett  complains,  almost  tearfully  that  after 
having  asked  his  advice  in  the  matter,  Weems 
had  acted  contrary  to  it  and  preached  to  a 
Methodist  congregation  in  his  neighborhood. 
He  proceeds  with  his  plaint:  "  I  have  a  re- 
gard for  Weems,  his  zeal  &  attention  to  ye 
Duties  of  his  sacred  office  merit  esteem;  but 
in  proportion  as  this  Zeal  &  Diligence  are 
applied  to  the  Methodist  Interest  it  weakens 
us."  ''  There  was  no  rigidity  in  the  church- 
manship  of  Weems.  To-day  he  would  be 
classed  with  the  "  low  "  churchmen,  or,  as 
he  was  not  unaffected  by  the  critical  thought 

"'In  collection  of  MSS.  letters  in  the  Maryland  Diocesan 
Library,  Baltimore. 


36  PARSON  WEEMS 

of  his  time,  it  might  be  nearer  the  mark  to 
say  that  he  was  one  of  the  first  of  American 
"  broad  "  churchmen. 

It  is  generally  said  that  Weems  gave  up  the 
active  ministry  for  the  bookselling  business 
about  the  year  1800,  but  it  was  eight  years  be- 
fore this  that  he  first  went  upon  the  road  as 
a  book  peddler.  He  attended  the  Conven- 
tion "  held  in  Annapolis  in  June,  1792,  as 
rector  of  Westminster  Parish,  and  we  learn 
from  the  "  Diary  "  that  its  writer  and  Weems 
lodged  together  during  the  sessions,  and  that 
Weems  obtained  his  and  many  other  subscrip- 
tions to  a  tract  which  he  had  lately  published. 
By  September  of  1792,  he  had  given  up  his 
parish  in  Maryland,  and  as  far  as  Is  known 
he  never  after  this  held  a  regular  charge.  The 
authority  for  the  latter  date  Is  the  "  Diary," 
for  Duke,  who  has  just  become  rector  of 
North  Elk  Parish,  Cecil  County,  and  lives  In 
Elkton,  writes  as  follows:  "  Went  to  Church 
and  preached — the  Rev'd  Mr.  Weems  came 
In  the  mean  time.    .    .   .   Was  sorry  to   see 


24 


Journal  of  Convention,  Diocese  of  Maryland,   1792. 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  37 

Weem's  pedling  way  of  life,  but  God  knows 
best  by  what  methods  we  can  most  directly 
answer  the  designations  of  his  Providence." 
This  can  have  but  one  meaning,  and  that  is 
that  Weems  had  given  up  his  parish  and  taken 
to  the  road  as  a  means  of  livelihood. 

The  town  of  Elkton,  where  William  Duke 
was  now  domiciled,  lay  not  far  from  Wil- 
mington on  the  highroad  from  Baltimore  to 
Philadelphia,  and  at  this  period  of  his  life 
Weems  appears  to  have  had  a  great  deal  of 
business  in  these  three  cities.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  he  passed  through  Elkton 
with  frequency  and  regularity,  and  always  in 
his  visits  he  stopped  for  a  night  or  a  day  at 
the  Duke  house,  either  to  take  advantage  of 
its  hospitality,  or  to  discuss  one  of  the  many 
business  deals  which  he  continued  to  have  with 
its  master.  In  this  way  we  are  able  to  meet 
him  In  the  flesh  until  the  year  1808.  Doubt- 
less he  had  business  or  expectations  of  it  in 
Philadelphia,  but  in  connection  with  his  many 
visits  there,  it  should  be  remembered  that  In 
and  near  that  city  lived  his  first  cousins,  the 


38  PARSON  JVEEMS 

children  ot  his  aunt,  Williamlna  Moore.  Tra- 
dition has  it  that  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  at 
Moore  Hall,  and  it  may  have  been  through 
the  influence  of  his  relatives  that  he  was  finally 
brought  into  the  employment  of  Matthew 
Carey,  the  active  Philadelphia  publisher. 

In  the  last  eight  years  of  the  century,  how- 
ever, he  seems  to  have  been  much  at  a  loose 
end,  for  he  is  here  and  everywhere,  planning 
publishing  ventures,  selling  books  of  his  own 
and  others'  publishing,  and  making  tentative 
efforts  towards  authorship  on  his  own  account. 
He  is  feeling  his  way  to  the  successful  busi- 
ness and  literary  activities  of  his  later  life. 
In  1794,  Samuel  and  John  Adams  of  Wil- 
mington printed  for  him  Wilson's  Account  of 
the  Pelew  Islands,  a  book  which  three  years 
before  he  had  heard  William  Duke  read  aloud 
at  the  "  Wood  Yard,"  the  West  estate  in 
Prince  George  County.  In  the  same  year  he 
turns  up  in  New  York,  and  on  his  return  he 
bears  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  Abram  Beach," 
assistant  at  Trinity  Church,  to  Dr.  Claggett, 


23 


MSS.  letters  in  Maryland  Diocesan  Library,  Baltimore. 


THE  PARISH  PRIEST  39 

now  Bishop  of  the  r3iocesc  of  Maryland.  In 
the  letter,  among  other  matters  of  Interest  to 
its  writer,  there  occurs  this  sentence :  "  Mr. 
Weems  informs  me  that  he  intends  to  publish 
a  volume  of  Sermons  under  the  Title  of  the 
American  Proft  Episcopal  Preacher  the  Plan 
which  he  will  have  an  opportunity  to  present 
to  you  in  person,  is,  I  think,  a  good  one — and 
cannot  but  wish  him  success."  There  is  no 
record  of  this  book  ever  having  been  pub- 
lished. In  1796  he  brought  out  the  third  of 
his  publications  of  which  there  is  any  record, 
an  edition  of  Franklin's  pamphlet,  The  Way 
to  Wealth.  Decidedly  of  the  upper  class  by 
birth,  Weems  was  nevertheless  of  the  middle 
class  In  temperament  and  sympathy,  and  one 
of  the  many  ways  that  this  democracy  shows 
In  his  life  and  wTltings  is  his  almost  weari- 
some admiration  of  Franklin  and  his  trinity 
of  bourgeois  virtues,  Industry,  Temperance 
and  Frugality. 

Weems'  efforts  during  these  years  could  not 
have  been  especially  remunerative  in  the  gear 
of  this  world,  for  in  November,  1795,  Duke 


40  PARSON  JVEEMS 

writes  in  his  "  Diary "  after  one  of  his 
friend's  visits:  "I  wonder  at  Weems  to 
travel  afoot,"  and  now  and  for  some  time 
afterwards,  on  these  occasions,  he  writes  of 
"  walking  "  a  bit  on  his  way  with  him.  Until 
sometime  later  in  the  decade,  when  he  became 
Matthew  Carey's  agent  for  the  Southern 
States,  it  is  probable  that  he  led  a  poorly  re- 
warded life  of  labor.  On  the  second  day  of 
July,  1795,'*"  he  married  Miss  Fanny  Ewell, 
the  daughter  of  Col.  Jesse  Ewell  of  "  Belle 
Air,"  Prince  William  County,  Virginia,  and 
soon  afterwards  he  settled  in  the  then  flour- 
ishing town  of  Dumfries  in  the  same  county, 
where  he  established  a  sort  of  base  of  sup- 
plies in  the  way  of  a  book  store.  For  the  rest 
of  his  life,  Dumfries,  and  later  "  Belle  Air," 
were  the  havens  of  rest  to  which  he  looked 
forward  as  the  reward  of  his  journeys'  ends. 
He  had  a  large  family  of  children,  and  it  is 
said  that  their  home  life  was  peculiarly  happy. 
Certainly  he  was  a  tender  and  loving  father 
and  husband. 

"Historian  of  the  Cherry  Tree,"   WaUer  B.   Norris  in 
National  Magazine,  February,  1910. 


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IV 
THE  BOOK  PEDDLER 

The  Episcopal  Church  in  Virginia  fell  into 
popular  disfavor  after  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Its  glebes  and  endowments  were  taken 
away,  and  the  popular  voice  cried  down  its 
every  defence.  It  was  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  therefore  despicable  as  were  all 
things  English.  The  consequence  was  that 
its  membership  fell  away,  its  clergy  became 
few  and  disheartened,  and  in  some  places  the 
churches  were  closed  for  lack  either  of  priest 
or  people,  or  sometimes  of  both.  Pohick,  one 
of  the  four  churches  of  Truro,  sometimes 
called  Mt.  Vernon  Parish,  had  no  minister- 
in-charge  for  the  last  fifteen  years  of  the  cen- 
tury. It  became  the  custom  to  contract  with 
a  visiting  or  a  travelling  clergyman  to  hold 
services  here  for  a  month  or  two,  or  longer, 
as  the  case  might  be,  and  the  present  His- 
toriographer of  the  Diocese  of  Virginia  "  has 


37 


The  Rev.  E.  L.  Goodwin,  Fairfax,  Va. 


42  PARSON  WEEMS 

seen  a  copy  of  one  of  these  contracts  whereby 
a  certain  clergyman  was  to  serve  as  locum 
tenens  of  Pohick  Church. 

It  is  most  probable  that  it  was  through  an 
arrangement  of  this  sort  that  Weems  min- 
istered in  Pohick  Church  at  different  times  for 
more  than  two  decades,  and  this  is  his  only 
ground  for  styling  himself  in  after  years  as 
"  Formerly  rector  of  Mt.  Vernon  Parish." 
Pohick,  before  the  Revolution,  had  been  the 
chosen  place  of  worship  of  George  Washing- 
ton, and  doubtless  Weems  considered  it  no 
small  advertisement  for  his  Life  of  Washing-, 
ton  that  its  author  should  describe  himself  on 
its  title  page  as  having  been  at  one  time  the 
hero's  rector,  with  all  that  such  a  title  im- 
plied. He  was  rather  in  the  habit  of  putting 
his  best  foot  forward  where  the  sale  of  his 
books  was  in  question,  and  this  is  one  of  the 
two  instances  in  which  the  boot  upon  the  said 
foot  was  a  borrowed  one.  In  the  absence, 
however,  of  a  full  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances entering  into  the  matter,  it  is  well  to 
regard  with  charity  this  apparent  perversion 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  43 

of  truth.  It  Is  not  the  least  improbable  that 
during  his  various  tenures  of  Pohick,  he  was 
locally  regarded  as  the  Rector  of  Mt.  Vernon 
Parish.  As  late  as  the  year  18 ly,""  Weems 
In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Allen,  a  student  of  divinity 
In  Alexandria,  speaks  of  not  being  able  to 
keep  his  appointment  to  preach  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday  in  Pohick  Church,  so  that  his  as- 
sumption of  the  title  of  rector  had  evidently 
not  aroused  a  great  amount  of  resentment 
against  him  In  the  parish. 

There  is  evidence  In  plenty  of  a  local  sort 
that  Weems  preached  at  various  periods  in 
Pohick  Church,  and  certain  passages  In  John 
Davis'  Travels  in  America  show  him  there  In 
1 801  preaching,  and  apparently  acceptably, 
to  a  crowded  church.  I  give  some  extracts 
from  the  pages  of  the  lively  Englishman: 

"  Hither  I  rode  on  Sundays  and  joined  the 
congregation  of  Parson  Weems,  a  minister  of 
the  Episcopal  persuasion,  who  was  cheerful 
In  his  mien  that  he  might  win  men  to  religion. 
A  Virginian  churchyard  on  Sunday  resembles 


28 


Southern  Churchman,  June  ii,  1910. 


44  PARSON  WEEMS 

rather  a  race  course  than  a  sepulchral  ground. 
The  ladles  come  to  It  In  carriages  and  the  men 
after  dismounting  make  fast  their  horses  to 
the  trees.  I  was  astounded  on  entering  the 
yard  to  hear  '  steed  threaten  steed  with  high 
and  boastful  neigh.'  Nor  was  I  less  stunned 
by  the  rattling  of  carriage  wheels  and  the 
cracking  of  whips  and  the  vociferations  of  the 
gentry  to  the  negroes  who  accompanied  them. 
But  the  discourse  of  Mr.  Weems  calmed  every 
perturbation,  for  he  preached  the  great  doc- 
trine of  salvation  as  one  who  had  felt  Its 
power.  It  was  easy  to  discover  that  he  felt 
what  he  said;  and,  Indeed,  so  uniform  was  his 
piety  that  he  might  have  applied  to  himself 
the  words  of  the  prophet:  '  My  mouth  shall 
be  telling  of  the  righteousness  and  salvation 
of  Christ  all  the  day  long:  for  I  know  no  end 
thereof.'  " 

*^L«  y^p  ^i^  ^t»  yig 

^^  ^J%  ^^  ^1^  ^T^ 

"  '  How,  Sir,  did  you  like  my  preaching?  ' 
*  Sir,'  cried  I,  '  It  was  a  sermon  to  pull  down 
the  proud,  and  humble  the  haughty.  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  many  of  your  congre- 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  45 

gation  were  under  spiritual  and  scriptural  con- 
viction of  their  sins.  Sir,  you  spoke  home  to 
sinners.  You  knocked  at  the  door  of  their 
hearts.'  " 

''  '  I  grant  that,'  said  Parson  Weems.  '  But 
I  doubt  (shaking  his  head)  whether  the 
hearts  of  many  were  not  both  barred  and 
bolted  against  me.'  " 

Weems  was  an  admirer  of  the  preaching 
of  John  Wesley,  and  If  one  may  judge  from 
the  words  of  this  witness  and  from  the  testi- 
mony of  his  pamphlets  which  are  but  ser- 
mons enlarged,  It  Is  safe  to  say  that  his  ser- 
mons were  permeated  with  that  evangelical 
spirit  which  set  flowing  the  tears  of  repent- 
ance wherever  the  early  Methodists  held  their 
meetings. 

In  the  above  extract  from  Travels  in  Amer- 
ica, there  appears  a  hint  of  something  In 
Weems'  conduct  which  did  him  disservice 
with  Bishop  Meade  and  certain  others  who 
like  the  Bishop  knew  only  one  kind  of  preach- 
ing and  one  kind  of  praying.  To  be  "  cheer- 
ful in  his  mien  that  he  might  win  men  to  re- 

4 


46  PARSON  WEEMS 

liglon  "  would  be  considered  no  great  crime 
in  a  preacher  of  modern  times,  provided  al- 
ways that  a  proper  dignity  were  maintained. 
It  is  in  this  particular  that  Weems  sinned, 
according  to  Bishop  Meade  who  writes  that 
in  family  prayers  his  erring  brother  would 
present  his  petitions  In  such  a  form  that 
neither  "  the  young  or  old,  the  grave  or  gay, 
could  keep  their  risible  faculties  from  violent 
agitation."  Whether  this  was  a  regular  cus- 
tom with  Weems,  or  whether  having  once  or 
twice  Indulged  too  freely  in  homely  and  vig- 
orous allusions  In  his  prayers  and  so  acquired 
a  lasting  reputation  for  Irreverence,  It  is  im- 
possible to  determine  in  the  absence  of  other 
testimony.  Certainly  there  is  no  trace  of  any- 
thing of  the  sort  in  his  writings,  and  the  only 
comment  that  William  Duke  ever  made  on 
any  of  his  prayers  or  exhortations  was  to  re- 
cord that  he  found  one  of  them  "  tedious." 
It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  Weems  was 
guilty  of  this  sort  of  sacrilege,  but  It  is  not 
the  impression  that  one  acquires  of  him  from 
a  close  study  of  his  life  and  writings. 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  47 

Others  of  Bishop  Meade's  memories  of 
Wecms  at  this  period  are  of  interest,  although 
they  arc  stories  which  cast  doubt  upon  his 
orthodoxy  in  the  faith,  or  which  at  the  least 
lay  him  open  to  the  charge  of  exercising  what 
the  Bishop  calls  a  "  spurious  charity  "  in 
things  doctrinal.  "  On  an  election  or  court- 
day  at  Fairfax  Court-House,"  writes  the 
church  historian  of  Virginia,  "  ....  I  ...  . 
found  Mr.  Weems  with  a  bookcaseful  for 
sale,  in  the  portico  of  the  tavern.  On  looking 
at  them  I  saw  Paine's  '  Age  of  Reason,'  and 
taking  it  into  my  hand,  turned  to  him,  and 
asked  him  if  it  was  possible  that  he  could  sell 
such  a  book.  He  immediately  took  out  the 
Bishop  of  Llandaff's  answer,  and  said,  '  Be- 
hold the  antidote.  The  bane  and  the  antidote 
are  both  before  you.'  "  His  crow^ning  im- 
pertinence, however,  was  that  time  when  in 
the  Bishop's  own  pulpit  he  "  extolled  Tom 
Paine  and  one  or  more  infidels  in  America, 
and  said  if  their  ghosts  could  return  to  earth 
they  would  be  shocked  to  hear  the  falsehoods 
which  were  told  of  them,"  a  statement  which 


48  PARSON  WEEMS 

was  doubtless  Truth's  very  Image,  for  to  cer- 
tain of  our  ancestors  Tom  Paine  was  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  Scripture  prophecies  concern- 
ing Antichrist.  It  sometimes  seems  that  Par- 
son Weems  was  that  peculiar  type  of  clergy- 
man who  is  born  and  lives  apparently  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  vex  the  soul  of  whatever 
bishop  he  may  be  serving  under. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  clergyman  who  went 
about  the  country  in  a  cart,  who  sold  books 
among  which  were  the  works  of  Tom  Paine, 
and  who  preached  and  prayed  in  a  fashion 
entirely  his  own,  would  draw  upon  himself 
sharp  disapproval  from  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Grundy.  But  it  Is  not  likely  that  Weems 
noticed  their  averted  faces  or  that  he  would 
have  cared  if  he  had  noticed  them.  They  who 
dwell  in  tents,  Ishmael's  breed,  have  never 
been  notably  sensitive  to  the  opinions,  ex- 
pressed or  unexpressed,  of  the  sons  of  Sarah. 
Weems  was  aggressive  in  business,  zealous  in 
religion,  tactless  and  careless  of  opinion  in 
both.  He  strode  In  his  hob-nailed  boots  over 
a   thousand   conventions,   but   if   he   got   his 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  49 

books  sold,  found  an  audience  now  and  then 
for  a  sermon  or  an  address,  and  carried  home 
a  good  profit  to  what  Bishop  Meade  calls  his 
"  interesting  and  pious  family  "  at  Dumfries, 
he  cared  not  what  cherished  ideal  of  clerical 
conduct  he  left  trampled  behind  him. 

It  has  frequently  been  said  that  Weems 
gave  up  his  active  ministry  because  he  could 
not  support  his  family  upon  the  small  stipend 
with  which  it  was  the  custom  of  the  day  and 
place  to  reward  its  clergy.  This  might  have 
been  true  but  for  the  small  consideration  that 
when  he  took  to  the  road  in  1792  he  had  no 
family.  The  true  explanation  of  his  action 
may  lie  in  the  fact  that  he  was  the  victim  of 
an  incurable  restlessness.  The  opportunity 
offered  to  gratify  his  propensity  for  roaming, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  might  employ  him- 
self in  a  business  with  a  wide  sphere  of  use- 
fulness. He  seems  to  have  impressed  Duke 
with  the  belief  that  he  took  to  peddling  re- 
ligious and  moral  literature  with  the  idea  of 
serving  his  God  more  acceptably  than  he  was 
doing  as  a  parish  priest,  and  that  gentleman 


50  PARSON  JVEEMS 

was  not  one  to  be  taken  In  by  a  canting  pre- 
text. Doubtless  Weems  was  sincere  In  this 
explanation,  but  primarily  it  was  because  he 
was  born  for  the  road  that  he  took  to  the 
road.  He  liked  change  and  movement.  He 
gave  up  medicine  for  the  church,  the  church 
for  the  road.  He  was  constitutionally  a  wan- 
derer. William  Duke,  himself  the  most  rest- 
less of  men,  rode  in  and  out,  endlong  and 
overthwart  the  state  of  Maryland,  and  as 
often  as  not  In  some  Inaccessible  corner  he  re- 
cords a  meeting  with  Mr.  Weems,  then  a 
simple  parish  priest.  Just  what  their  business 
Is,  or  whether  they  have  any,  no  man  may 
know.  At  any  rate  Weems  liked  to  wander 
and  he  liked  to  sell  books,  and  if  any  person 
may  be  said  to  have  the  advantage  of  keeping 
his  cake  and  eating  It  too,  It  Is  he  who  en- 
gages In  a  profitable  business  the  activities  of 
which  are  In  line  with  his  predilections.  To 
live  In  a  van  and  sell  books  for  bread !  What 
golden  dream  Is  this? 

His  life  as  a  wandering  book  peddler  has 
become  part  of  the  local  tradition  of  many 


TEIE  BOOK  PEDDLER  51 

of  the  places  through  which  his  business  used 
to  take  him.  The  legends  say  that  he  carried 
his  violin  with  him  on  the  long  journeys  which 
made  up  the  greater  part  of  his  later  life,  and 
it  is  pleasant  to  think  of  him  as  having  this 
means  of  relaxation.  Numerous  stories  are 
told  of  his  willingness  to  play  for  dances,  for 
the  negro  boys'  "  hoe  down,"  and  once  even 
for  a  puppet  show.  Generally  the  narrator  of 
these  tales  implies  that  In  them  there  is  some- 
thing discreditable  to  their  subject.  Bishop 
Meade  disapproved  of  these  doings  almost  as 
much  as  he  did  of  the  good-natured  minstrel's 
heretical  opinions  concerning  Tom  Paine. 
The  stories  about  his  fiddling  are  so  conflict- 
ing, so  frequently  asserted  by  one  and  so  em- 
phatically denied  by  others,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  say  how  general  a  custom  this  public  fid- 
ling  was  with  him.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  they 
are  true  tales.  Surely  there  is  no  harm  In 
fiddling.  One  likes  to  think  of  him  ready  at 
all  times  to  play  for  rich  or  poor,  In  the 
"  great  house  "  or  In  the  "  quarter."  This  is 
certain,  that  If  he  fiddled  for  people  to  dance. 


52  PARSON  WEEMS 

he  was  equally  ready  to  Inveigh  upon  them 
shrewdly  If  they  showed  vicious  Inclination. 
If  It  was  pleasant  for  those  who  danced  to  his 
playing,  It  was  correspondingly  unpleasant  for 
the  drunkard  or  the  rake  that  felt  the  rough 
of  his  tongue.  We  gather  from  various 
sources  a  sort  of  composite  pen  picture  of 
Weems  as  he  appeared  to  the  people  of  the 
rural  South — a  merrily  disposed,  white-haired 
man  who  was  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to 
play  for  you  to  dance,  to  sell  you  an  improv- 
ing book,  to  pray  with  you,  or  to  preach  at 
you  a  sermon  which,  for  the  shame  of  it,  you 
would  remember  all  your  life."*^ 

This  is  to  say  little  of  the  business  side  of 
his  life.  If  his  object  was  to  praise  God  by 
circulating  religious  literature  through  the 
South,  he  attained  It  beyond  dispute.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  In  one  year  he  sold  three 

^^  In  fairness  it  should  be  recorded  that  the  descendants 
of  Weems  are  positive  in  their  denial  of  the  stories  relating 
to  his  public  fiddling.  It  is  true  that  these  stories  are 
legendary,  but  they  are  so  persistent,  and  there  is  so  little 
evidence  of  their  untruth  that  it  is  necessary  in  the  interests 
of  the  story  to  notice  them  here. 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  53 

thousand  copies  of  an  exceptionally  handsome 
and  expensive  Bible  which  Matthew  Carey  is 
said  to  have  published  with  no  little  uneasi- 
ness as  to  the  success  of  his  v^enture.  He  sold 
books  for  children  and  books  for  their  elders, 
prayer  books,  hynin  books.  Bibles,  philosoph- 
ical, historical  and  biographical  works — any- 
thing, in  short,  that  there  was  a  possible  de- 
mand for.  He  circulated  no  man  may  tell 
how  many  thousands  of  his  own  biographies 
and  moral  pamphlets,  and  a  great  number  of 
books  of  sermons  and  philosophical  works  by 
standard  authors  which  he  published  at  his 
own  risk.  There  has  been  published  a  letter 
from  him  to  one  of  his  several  employers  ^  In 
which,  writing  of  the  sale  of  Marshall's  Life 
of  WashingtoUy  he  advises  and  discourses  so 
knowingly  of  the  peculiarities  of  customers 


29 


This  very  interesting  letter  is  to  be  found  in  the  Ameri- 
can Historical  Record,  vol.  2,  Feb.  1873,  p.  82.  It  is  worthy 
of  perusal.  It  is  addressed  to  Caleb  P.  Wayne,  the  pub- 
lisher of  Marshall's  "  Life  of  Washington."  Weems  left 
the  service  of  Matthew  Carey  about  this  time  (1804),  but 
later,  Carey  apparently  agrees  to  disagree  with  his  strong- 
headed  agent,  and  the  old  relationship  is  resumed.  It  was 
doubtless  a  mutually  advantageous  one. 


54  PARSON  WEEMS 

and  the  Ins  and  outs  of  the  trade  that  one 
feels  the  case  to  be  understated  when  he  says 
further  in  the  letter:  "  The  world  Is  pleased 
to  say  that  I  have  talents  at  the  subscription 
business."  In  the  same  letter  he  plans  for  a 
third  edition  of  one  of  his  own  pamphlets,  to 
consist  of  a  thousand  copies. 

The  manner  of  his  selling  was  not  always 
the  same.  Without  doubt  when  he  had  to 
secure  subscriptions  to  the  five-volume  edition 
of  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  he  went 
about  It  In  the  regular  fashion  of  book  agents 
and  authors  from  time  Immemorial.  Woe  to 
the  poor  gentleman  who  admitted  him  to  his 
house  when  a  project  of  this  sort  was  afoot, 
for  Weems  was  not  unknown  for  a  certain 
"  Industry  &  Zeal."  When,  however,  It  was 
merely  a  question  of  disposing  of  a  fresh  box 
of  miscellaneous  works,  moral,  religious  or 
educational,  he  would  place  himself  In  the 
portico  of  the  tavern  on  court  day  and  there 
expose  his  wares  to  the  public  gaze.  We  can 
imagine  him  so  placed,  calling  his  greetings 
to  acquaintances  from  the  outlying  parts,  ex- 


THE  BOOK  PEDDLER  55 

changing  a  jest  with  one,  a  kind  word  with 
another,  or  seizing  a  third,  a  possible  cus- 
tomer, and  overwhelming  him  with  a  flood  of 
words  relative  to  the  merits  of  his  new  stock 
in  trade.  It  is  said  that,  armed  with  a  sheaf 
of  pamphlets,  he  would  invade  crowded  tav- 
ern bars,  take  up  a  favorable  position  in  view 
of  all,  and  after  a  few  words  of  good-natured 
bantering,  launch  a  virile  diatribe  against  the 
sin  of  drunkenness  and  its  attendant  evils. 
Then,  before  his  astonished  hearers  had  time 
to  get  sulky,  he  would  go  around  among  them 
and  sell  a  handful  of  his  Drunkard's  Looking 
Glass  at  twenty-five  cents  a  copy,  combining 
by  this  means  philanthropic  service  and  per- 
sonal profit. 

Without  doubt  the  "  interesting  and  pious 
family  "  which  he  maintained  in  Dumfries 
and  "  Belle  Air  "  was  supported  in  comfort 
and  decency.  After  nearly  thirty-five  years  of 
life  on  the  road.  Parson  Weems  died  in  1825, 
while  on  business  in  Beaufort,  South  Carolina. 
A  well-founded  tradition  has  it  that  he  died 
in  the  utterance  of  a  sentiment  which  had  ani- 


56  PARSON  WEEMS 

mated  his  life.  "  God  Is  love,"  were  his  last 
words.  He  was  buried  there,  but  ere  long  his 
remains  were  removed  to  a  corner  of  the  fam- 
ily cemetery  on  the  "  Belle  Air  "  estate.  It 
was  here  that  the  leisure  of  his  later  years  had 
been  spent,  and  it  is  fitting  that  his  restless, 
road-worn  body  should  finally  be  at  rest  in 
the  beautiful,  placid  spot  which  he  loved. 


V 

THE  AUTHOR 

It  would  be  a  mistake  for  anyone  to  take 
up  the  works  of  Weems  thinking  to  find  in 
them  well-considered  historical  writing  and 
careful  biography.  They  are  of  interest  to- 
day principally  as  literary  curiosities,  and  as 
with  all  books  of  this  sort,  it  Is  with  each 
reader  almost  a  matter  of  pre-natal  disposi- 
tion whether  or  not  he  will  like  them  or  find 
them  dull  and  flat.  If  he  was  born  to  like 
Weems  as  a  writer,  he  will  like  him  in  spite 
of  obvious  faults,  but  if  his  predisposition  is 
to  the  contrary,  no  amount  of  exposition  will 
persuade  him  that  the  "  historian  of  the 
Cherry  Tree  "  Is  anything  but  an  inaccurate 
biographer,  an  extravagant  preacher  of  mor- 
als and  a  saucy  fellow  who  was  sometimes  in- 
excusably vulgar  In  thought  or  expression. 

Doubtless  Weems  felt  that  there  was  a 
place  for  his  biographical  and  moral  works  in 


58  PARSON  JVEEMS 


the  America  which  emerged  from  the  War  of 
Independence,  for  when  he  began  his  Hterary 
career  the  country  had  but  lately  come  out  of 
a  successful  struggle  for  liberty,  and  child-like 
it  was  confounding  its  new  possession  with 
that  other  quality  of  license,  loath  to  submit 
itself  again  to  government  of  any  sort.  Fed- 
eral and  Dem.ocrat  were  the  opposing  parties. 
Jacobin  clubs,  Tammany  organizations  and 
other  political  associations  were  forming  on 
every  hand,  while  party  hatred  ran  so  high 
that  not  even  Washington  was  spared  the 
vilest  lampoons.  Eighteenth  century  ration- 
alism, which  here  became  succinctly  "  French 
Infidelity,"  was  submerging  the  intellects  of 
the  educated  classes,  and  the  unsettled  politics 
of  Europe  contributed  no  little  to  the  national 
uneasiness.  The  indirect  result  of  all  this  was 
a  relaxation  of  the  moral  fibre  of  all  classes, 
and  the  country  stood  in  need  of  those  who 
could  tell  it  who  w^ere  its  truly  great  men  and 
why  they  were  great,  and  to  ding  in  its  ears 
that  the  Ten  Commandments  had  not  been  re- 
scinded by  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


THE  AUTHOR  59 


This  was  what  Weems  tried  to  do  by  preach- 
ing, by  praying  and  by  biographical  and  moral 
writing. 

The  first  published  work  of  Weems  is  gen- 
erally said  to  have  been  the  Philanthropist  in 
1 799,  but  thanks  to  certain  entries  in  the  Duke 
*'  Diary,"  an  earlier  publication  than  this  can 
be  named,  although,  unfortunately,  there  are 
to  be  found  no  details  of  the  little  book  in 
question.  Just  before  he  gave  up  his  active 
ministry  in  the  Diocese  of  Maryland,  he  at- 
tended the  annual  convention  at  Annapolis, 
and  William  Duke  writes  as  follows  of  some 
of  the  happenings  of  these  days  and  others 
later  in  the  month.  "June  i,  1792.  Walked 
into  the  country  and  lodged  with  Mr.  Weems 
and  Mr.  Coleman.  Subscribed  Weems'  pro- 
posals for  2  books  and  paid  i/io."  "  June 
29.  I  see  Weems'  publication  of  Onania  is  in 
a  good  many  hands.  I  am  afraid  rather  as 
a  matter  of  diversion  than  serious  considera- 
tion." And  next  day  he  proceeds:  "  Weems 
has  incurred  a  good  deal  of  ridicule  as  wxU 
as  serious  blame  by  his  odd  publication." 


6o  PARSON  JVEEMS 

This  date,  June  i,  1792,  places  the  begin- 
ning of  Weems'  literary  career  seven  years 
earlier  than  has  been  done  heretofore  by  his 
biographers.  He  published  In  1799,  as  has 
been  said,  a  political  tract  called  the  Philan- 
thropist, and  as  far  as  Is  known  these  two  are 
the  only  writings  of  his  that  saw  type  before 
the  publication  of  his  Life  of  Washington  In 
1800,  an  event  which  may  truly  be  called  his 
literary  debut.  Aside  from  their  undeniable 
merit,  there  are  additional  reasons  which 
should  be  given  In  explanation  of  the  popu- 
larity of  the  books  and  pamphlets  which  he 
now  began  to  produce  In  quick  succession  to 
one  another.  The  Revolution  had  left  an  Im- 
pressionable people  who  Immediately  entered 
upon  an  era  of  generous  hero  worship,  and  a 
man  who  could  add  fuel  to  their  ardor  In  this 
would  be  sure  of  a  hearing  from  all  classes. 
Then,  too,  it  was  no  small  thing  In  his  favor 
that  he  was  his  own  publisher  and  his  own  dis- 
tributing agent.  But  the  most  important  rea- 
son for  the  magnitude  and  distribution  of  his 
audience  is  the  fact  that  he  found  no  rivals  In 


THE  AUTHOR  61 


his  own  particular  field  of  endeavor.  And 
this  is  said  with  no  intention  of  depreciating 
the  quality  of  his  work. 

The  generation  of  Weems'  literary  activ- 
ity, approximately  the  years  1 790-1 820,  was 
a  sterile  period  in  the  production  of  books  for 
young  people  or  for  the  less  cultured  of  their 
elders.  Of  native  writers,  at  least,  scarcely 
one  offered  anything  fit  for  the  reading  of 
children,  and  even  in  England  the  list  of 
books  for  young  people  and  in  the  least  suit- 
able for  them  was  painfully  short.  In  his 
own  country  Weems  was  a  pioneer  in  what 
has  since  become  a  great  industry,  the  writing 
of  books  for  boys. 

The  grimly  mysterious  tales  of  Charles 
Brockden  Brown,  the  essays  and  novels  of 
James  Kirke  Paulding,  the  comedies  of  Royall 
Tyler  and  the  belles  lettres  of  Washington 
Irving  were  for  the  pleasing  of  a  higher  In- 
tellectual taste  than  the  day  and  place  could 
claim  for  Its  average  reader.  Cooper  had  not 
yet  begun  the  writing  which  was  to  Inaugurate 
a  new  era  in  American  letters.     When,  there- 


62  PARSON  IVEEMS 

fore,  Weems  appeared  to  the  shopkeeper,  the 
artisan,  the  ploughboy  and  the  children  of  all 
of  them,  with  his  stirring  lives  of  Washington 
and  Marion,  written  in  language  of  the  sim- 
plest, without  any  attempt  at  subtlety  or  orig- 
inality of  thought,  and  in  a  style  which  is  the 
despair  of  a  more  conscious  writer,  he  was  ac- 
claimed as  a  national  benefactor.  For  his  own 
generation,  he  was  the  most  widely  read  of 
American  writers.  The  number  of  editions 
of  his  Life  of  Washington  is  variously  esti- 
mated from  forty  to  seventy,  and  in  a  day 
when  books  were  passed  from  hand  to  hand 
to  a  greater  extent  than  now,  this  one  must 
have  reached  a  host  of  readers. 

The  Civil  War  made  new  heroes,  and  it 
and  its  results  changed  the  country  from  lad 
to  man.  The  consequence  has  been  that 
Weems  is  almost  unknown  to  the  generation 
which  has  grown  up  since  the  great  conflict 
between  the  States.  Not  a  year  ago,  however, 
this  writer  found  a  newly  printed  issue  of  the 
Life  of  Marion  on  the  shelf  of  a  country 
store,  and  he  knows  of  a  contemplated  new 


THE  AUTHOR  63 


edition  of  the  Life  of  JVashington.  If  an 
author's  fame  be  measured  by  the  publisher's 
memory  of  his  work,  Weems  has  attained  a 
share  of  the  shining  bauble  sufficient  to  lift 
him  completely  beyond  the  class  of  minor 
writers  in  which  his  merits  place  him. 


VI 
THE  BIOGRAPHIES 

In  December  of  1799  died  George  Wash- 
ington, who  to  many  of  his  contemporaries 
was  the  archetype  of  statesman,  soldier  and 
gentleman,  while  on  the  other  hand  to  a  large 
number  of  people,  he  stood  for  everything 
that  was  the  opposite  of  these  connotations  in 
mind,  manners  and  morals.  Weems  was  of 
the  former  class,  and  In  an  outburst  of  sin- 
cere hero  worship  he  wrote,  and  published 
on  February  22,  1800,  a  short  biographical 
sketch  of  the  great  general  and  president.  His 
was  not  the  first  "  life  "  of  Washington  that 
appeared,  but  It  was  so  far  the  best  and  most 
readable  that  a  new  and  enlarged  edition  was 
called  for  Immediately.  For  the  rest  of  his 
days  he  was  collecting  new  material  for  the 
successive  enlargements  and  embellishments 
of  the  work  which,  from  an  anniversary  ser- 


FRONTISPIECE    OF   WEEMS'    PAMPHLET,    "  GOD'S   REVENGE    AGAINST 


GAMBLING.         REDUCED. 


[See  page  92.] 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  65 

mon,  became  his  most  important  contribution 
to  literature. 

We  owe  chiefly  to  the  biographies  by  Mar- 
shall and  Ramsay  the  picture  which  we  have 
of  Washington  as  the  cold  and  colorless 
statesman  and  man  of  affairs,  but  It  must  be 
confessed  that  It  Is  Weems  who  has  made  his 
name  almost  a  synonym  for  youthful  prlgglsh- 
ness.  His  life  of  the  hero  of  the  Cherry  Tree 
story  was  written  chiefly  for  the  youth  of  the 
land  that  they  might  have  before  them  always 
an  example  of  perfection  in  conduct,  but  It 
needs  only  reference  to  such  a  book  as  San- 
ford  and  Merton  to  become  convinced  that 
the  eighteenth  century  ideal  of  manners  In 
boys  was  not  ours.  That  he  was  unaware  of 
his  offense  Is  evident  from  the  fact  that  in 
one  of  the  later  editions  of  the  book  he  de- 
clares In  the  preface  his  Intention  of  human- 
izing one  who  already  lived  in  the  popular 
Imagination  as  a  sort  of  deml-god. 

Not  by  any  means  the  most  worthy,  but  cer- 
tainly the  best  known  of  American  hero  tales 
is  the  story  of  George  Washington  and  his 


66  PARSON  WEEMS 

mutilation  of  the  Cherry  Tree.'"  It  Is  as- 
serted, generally  carelessly  and  without  any 
thought  upon  the  subject,  that  Weems  was 
father  and  mother  to  this  famous  anecdote  as 
well  as  Its  sponsor,  and  no  one  may  deny  the 
assertion.  It  Is  only  fair,  however,  to  say 
that  no  really  good  reason  has  ever  been 
given  for  holding  this  view,  and  no  evidence 
has  ever  been  brought  forward  In  support  of 
it.  On  the  contrary  there  Is  something  to  be 
said  for  the  authenticity  of  the  anecdote.  The 
story  is  probable  In  every  detail,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  Weems  was  assiduous  In  the  col- 
lection of  Washington  anecdotes  of  every 
sort.  Moreover,  through  his  wife's  kinship 
with  the  Washington  family,  he  had  every 
opportunity  for  learning  these  anecdotes,  if 
any  existed,  from  authoritative  sources.  He 
knew  Washington  personally,  corresponded 
with  him,  and  In  company  with  their  common 
friend.  Dr.  Craik,  stayed  at  least  once  with 

**  For  a  full  and  interesting  discussion  of  the  Cherry 
Tree  story,  see  "  Historian  of  the  Cherry  Tree,"  W.  B. 
Norris,  National  Magazine,  February,  1910. 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  67 

him  at  Mt.  Vernon,  and  he  was  intimate  with 
the  Reverend  Lee  Massey  who  was  Washing- 
ton's rector  and  associate  for  many  years. 
These  things,  of  course,  may  mean  nothing. 
They  are  given  only  to  show  that  it  was  en- 
tirely possible  for  Weems  to  have  heard  the 
Cherry  Tree  anecdote  from  some  one  close 
to  its  hero.  It  is  quite  within  the  pale  of 
probability  that  when  Weems  gave  as  his  au- 
thority for  the  story  the  same  "  excellent 
lady  "  who  had  told  him  others  of  her  mem- 
ories of  the  youthful  hero,  he  was  speaking 
sober  truth. 

Even  if  the  story  be  wholly  invented  by 
Weems,  he  has  done  a  real  service  to  the 
youth  of  the  nation.  It  is  questionable,  of 
course,  as  a  matter  of  literary  ethics  to  lay  an 
invented  anecdote  to  the  charge  of  one's  hero, 
but  possibly  the  good  parson  thought  that  a 
striking  example  of  truthfulness  would  be  of 
value  to  the  American  boy,  wherefore  he  in- 
vented a  story  containing  one.  He  has  made 
the  best-known  story  of  American  childhood 
one  that  teaches  by  great  example  the  telling 


68  PARSON  fVEEMS 

of  the  truth  whatever  befall.  Who  may  say 
that  this  story,  true  or  untrue,  has  not  had  an 
influence  on  the  national  character?^' 

Weems  has  been  accused  of  a  general  fabri- 
cation of  all  his  Washington  anecdotes. 
Whether  or  not  there  is  any  foundation  for 
this  will  probably  never  be  known,  as  it  is  a 
matter  likely  to  baffle  the  research  of  scholars. 
In  the  case  of  one  at  least  of  the  best  remem- 
bered of  them,  it  is  established  beyond  doubt 
that  he  brazenly  transplanted  it  from  another 
book,  a  fact  which  makes  it  difficult  to  defend 
him  from  the  accusation  of  literary  dishon- 
esty. But  true,  or  stolen,  or  invented,  this 
much  is  to  be  considered,  that  they  are  good 
anecdotes  of  their  sort  and  the  only  ones  that 
we  have  pertaining  to  the  youth  of  George 
Washington. 

The  literary  style  of  the  Life  of  Washing- 

'"'  Lincoln  tells  of  having  borrowed  Weems'  Life  of 
Washington  and  read  it  during  his  hard-working  boyhood. 
Moreover,  he  left  it  in  a  hiding-place  where  the  rain 
entered  and  sadly  damaged  the  book.  He  was  compelled 
to  work  still  harder  for  a  while  to  pay  the  owner  for  the 
ruin  which  had  resulted  from  his  carelessness. 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  69 

ton  and  others  of  the  works  of  Weems  Is 
worthy  of  some  consideration,  for  a  dull  or 
a  badly  written  page  in  these  books  is  a  rarity, 
and  this  statement  is  made  advisedly  and  with 
deference  to  Henry  Cabot  Lodge's  ''  charac- 
terization of  his  style  as  "  turgid,  overloaded 
and  at  times  silly."  His  writing  is  embel- 
lished with  anecdotes,  figures  of  comparison, 
and  appropriate  historical,  classical  and  scrip- 
tural allusions.  The  language  is  simple,  the 
sentences  uninvolved,  the  vocabulary  varied 
and  the  whole  inspired  by  that  something 
which  we  call  "  style,"  that  spirit  which  makes 
a  piece  of  writing  live  and  move. 

He  has  grave  defects  as  a  writer  of  Eng- 
lish. His  figurative  language  Is  sometimes 
grandiose  in  the  manner  of  his  age.  He  fre- 
quently Indulges  in  a  species  of  fine  writing 
exasperating  to  the  critical  mind,  and  his  use 
of  the  epic  where  plain  prose  were  better 
spoils  many  a  passage  in  his  books.  He  was 
one  of  the  lesser  writers  of  the  fag  end  of  an 

^  George  Washington.    By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.    (Ameri- 
can Statesman  Series.) 


70  PARSON  WEEMS 

age  which  preferred  Mr.  Alexander  Pope  to 
William  Shakespeare,  and  which  was  so  deaf- 
ened by  the  roar  of  Ossian  in  its  ears  that  it 
could  not  hear  Burns  the  Gauger  singing  im- 
mortal odes  in  his  Scottish  gin  shops.  It  was 
an  artificial  age  and  Weems  partook  of  its 
faults,  but  there  was  in  him  sufficient  literary 
virtue  to  make  his  books  live  in  the  affection 
of  his  countrymen  for  more  than  a  generation 
after  his  death.  Discredited  by  historians 
and  his  books  supplanted  by  those  of  later 
and  more  authoritative  biographers,  it  is  his 
style  which  has  kept  him  from  oblivion.  Since 
Weems'  death  this  nation  has  given  birth  to 
several  heroes,  but  there  has  arisen  no  biogra- 
pher to  make  their  lives  the  common  property 
of  every  household  in  the  land.  There  have 
lived  and  died  Lee  and  Lincoln,  Jackson  and 
Grant,  and  each  of  these  has  been  written 
about  time  and  again,  but  none  of  them  has 
had  a  biographer  in  the  sense  that  Weems  was 
the  biographer  of  Washington.  And  this  is 
true  not  because  he  is  an  accurate  historian  or 
a  painstaking  biographer,  but  because  he  tells 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  71 

his  story  with  a  contagious  enthusiasm  which 
fixes  itself  in  the  reader's  memory. 

Weems  was  first  of  all  a  preacher,  and  his 
style  exhibits  the  marks  of  his  calling,  that 
peculiar  fluency  of  language  which  is  the  pos- 
session of  one  who  does  a  great  deal  of  ex- 
temporaneous speaking.  He  was  well  read  in 
the  classics,  he  knew  his  Shakespeare,  and  it 
is  said  that  he  could  recite  from  memory  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  and  a  vast  portion 
of  the  Holy  Scripture.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  look  much  further  for  an  explanation  of 
his  lively,  sometimes  breathless,  narrative 
style.  He  wrote  in  the  straightforward,  un- 
stemmed  form  of  address  which  is  the  use  of 
every  earnest  preacher  of  moderate  oratorical 
ability,  the  language  and  rhetorical  style  of 
a  man  who  must  say  much  in  a  restricted  time, 
and  who  to  express  his  thought  is  driven  to 
the  use  of  nervous,  racy  and  direct  language. 
Moreover  Weems  had  for  a  heritage  the 
"  unstinted  English  of  the  Scot,"  and  he  lived 
in  an  age  which  was  not  ashamed  of  elo- 
quence, the  generation  in  which  every  school- 


72  PARSON  WEEMS 

house  rang  with  the  wildest  oratorical  flights 
essayed  by  even  the  gentlest  of  lads.  In  his 
writing,  the  reader  never  loses  sight  of  the 
eloquent  preacher  and  orator. 

The  simile  which  is  quoted  here  is  one  that 
Weems  in  various  forms  frequently  employs. 
It  is  undoubtedly  grandiloquent,  but  it  is  ap- 
propriate and  expressive  none  the  less  for  that 
reason.  There  are  many  of  us,  indeed,  who 
confess  to  a  shamefaced  liking  for  this  sort  of 
bombast.  It  is  pleasant  now  and  then  to 
meet  a  man  who  is  not  afraid  to  let  himself 
out,  one  who  knows  not  the  use  of  the  word 
*'  reserve  "  in  literary  composition.  "  As 
when  a  mammoth  suddenly  dashes  in  among 
a  thousand  buffaloes,  feeding  at  large  on  the 
vast  plains  of  Missouri;  all  at  once  the  in- 
numerous  herd,  with  wildly  rolling  eyes,  and 
hideous  bellowings,  break  forth  into  flight, 
while,  close  at  their  heels  the  roaring  monster 
follows.  Earth  trembles  as  they  fly.  Such 
was  the  noise  in  the  chase  of  Tarleton  .... 
from  the  famous  field  of  Cowpens." 

The  following  anecdote  is  as  good  an  ex- 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  73 

ample  as  may  be  found  of  the  sort  which  il- 
lumine his  pages,  and  which  make  it  impos- 
sible to  charge  him  with  dullness,  whatever 
his  other  faults  may  be.  "  Tarleton  was 
brave,  but  not  generous.  He  could  not  bear 
to  hear  another's  praise.  When  some  ladies 
in  Charleston  were  speaking  very  handsomely 
of  Washington,''  he  replied  with  a  scornful 
air  that,  '  He  would  be  very  glad  to  get  a 
sight  of  Col.  Washington.  He  had  heard 
much  talk  of  him,'  he  said,  '  but  had  never 
seen  him  yet.'  '  Why,  sir,'  rejoined  one  of 
the  ladles,  '  if  you  had  looked  behind  you  at 
the  battle  of  Cowpens,  you  might  easily  have 
enjoyed  that  pleasure.'  " 

When  he  is  not  in  a  Homeric  mood  his 
battle  pictures,  how^beit  lightly  sketched,  are 
generally  done  with  a  good  deal  of  spirit  and 
enthusiasm.  They  are  not  good  historical 
sources,  but  they  are  eminently  readable. 
Take,  for  an  example,  his  description  of  the 
defense  of  Charleston:  *' *  Well,  General 
Moultrie,'  said  Governor  Rutledge,  '  what  do 


32 


Colonel  Washington,  not  the  Commander-in-Chief. 


74  PARSON  fFEEMS 

you  think  of  giving  up  the  fort?  '  Moultrie 
could  scarcely  suppress  his  indignation.  '  No 
man,  sir,'  said  he  to  Lee,  '  can  have  a  higher 
opinion  of  the  British  ships  and  seamen  than 
I  have.  But  there  are  others  who  love  the 
smell  of  gunpowder  as  well  as  they  do;  and 
give  us  but  plenty  of  powder  and  ball,  sir, 
and  let  them  come  on  as  soon  as  they  please.' 
His  courage  was  quickly  put  to  the  test;  for 
about  ten  o'clock,  on  the  28th  of  June,  in  the 
glorious  1776,  Sir  Peter  Parker,  with  seven 
tall  ships  formed  his  line,  and  bearing  down 
within  point-blank  shot  of  the  fort,  let  go  his 
anchors  and  began  a  tremendous  fire.  At 
every  thundering  blast  he  hoped  fondly  to 
see  the  militia  take  to  the  sands  like  fright- 
ened rats  from  an  old  barn  on  lire.  But, 
widely  different  from  his  hopes,  the  militia 
stood  their  ground,  firm  as  the  Black-jacks  of 
their  land;  and  leveling  their  four-and-twenty 
pounders  with  good  aim,  bored  the  old  hearts 
of  oak  through  and  through  at  every  fire. 
Their  third  broadside  carried  away  the 
springs   on   the   cables   of   the   commodore's 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  75 

ship,  which  immediately  swung  around  right 
stern  under  the  guns  of  the  fort.  '  Hurra  !  my 
sons  of  thunder,'  was  instantly  the  cry  of  the 
American  battery,  '  look  handsomely  to  the 
commodore !  now  my  boys,  for  your  best  re- 
spects to  the  commodore !  '  Little  did  the 
commodore  thank  them  for  such  respects; 
for  in  a  short  time  he  had  60  of  his  brave  crew 
lying  lifeless  on  his  decks,  and  his  cockpit 
stowed  with  the  wounded.  At  one  period 
of  the  action,  the  quarter-deck  was  cleared  of 
every  soul,  except  Sir  Peter  himself.  Nor 
was  he  entirely  excused;  for  an  honest  cannon 
ball,  by  way  of  a  broad  hint  that  it  was  out 
of  character  for  a  Briton  to  fight  against  lib- 
erty, rudely  snatched  away  the  bags  of  his 
silk  breeches.  Thus  Sir  Peter  had  the  honour 
to  be  the  first,  and  I  believe  the  only  Sans 
Culotte  ever  heard  of  in  American  natural 
history." 

This  is  informal  writing,  but  it  at  least  has 
the  merit  of  life  and  animation.  He  goes  to 
the  other  extreme  in  describing  the  Battle  of 
Saratoga,  but  it  is  not  to  the  reader's  loss  that 


76  PARSON  WEEMS 

the  epic  fire  burnt  within  the  honest  parson 
for  a  moment  or  two: 

"  The  riflemen  flew  to  their  places,  and  In 
a  few  moments  the  hero "  was  cut  down. 
With  him  fell  the  courage  of  the  left  wing, 
who,  being  now  fiercely  charged,  gave  way, 
and  retreated  to  their  camp.  But  scarcely  had 
they  entered  It,  when  the  Americans,  with 
Arnold  at  their  head,  stormed  It  with  incon- 
ceivable fury;  rushing  with  trailed  arms 
through  a  heavy  discharge  of  musketry  and 
grape  shot.  The  British  fought  with  equal 
desperation.  For  their  all  was  at  stake;  the 
Americans,  like  a  whelming  flood,  were  burst- 
ing over  their  Intrenchments ;  and  hand  to 
hand,  with  arguments  of  bloody  steel,  were 
pleading  the  causes  of  ages  yet  unborn. 
Hoarse  as  a  mastiff  of  true  British  breed, 
Lord  Balcarras  was  heard  from  rank  to  rank, 
loud-animating  his  troops;  while  on  the  other 
hand,  fierce  as  the  hungry  tiger  of  Bengal,  the 
impetuous  Arnold  precipitated  his  heroes  on 

''The  British  General  Frazier,  shot  by  Arnold's  picked 
riflemen. 


1^ 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  77 

the  stubborn  foe.  High  in  air,  the  encoun- 
tering banners  blazed;  there  bold  waving  the 
lion  painted  standards  of  Britain;  here  the 
streaming  pride  of  Columbia's  lovely  stripes 
— while  thick  below,  ten  thousand  eager  war- 
riors close  the  darkening  files,  all  bristled  with 
vengeful  steel.  No  firing  is  heard.  But 
shrill  and  terrible,  from  rank  to  rank,  re- 
sounds the  clash  of  bayonets — frequent  and 
sad  the  groans  of  the  dying.  Pairs  on  pairs, 
Britons  and  Americans,  with  each  his  bayonet 
in  his  brother's  breast,  fall  forward  together 
faint-shrieking  in  death,  and  mingle  their 
smoking  blood." 

Next  in  merit  and  importance  to  Weems' 
Life  of  Washington  stands  his  Life  of  Gen- 
eral Francis  Marion,  a  work  which  was  pub- 
lished under  the  reputed  authorship  of  Peter 
Horry.  In  this  book  the  author  is  accused  of 
the  same  sort  of  unveracious  anecdotage  as 
in  the  Life  of  Washington,  but  William  Gil- 
more  Simms  was  of  a  contrary  opinion,  for  he 
wrote  in  the  preface  of  his  own  biography  of 

6 


78  PARSON  WEEMS 

the  famous  partisan  leader  that  "  Mr.  Weems 
had  rather  loose  notions  of  the  privileges  of 
the  biographer;  though,  In  reality,  he  has 
transgressed  much  less  in  his  Life  of  Marion 
than  Is  generally  supposed."  But  even  If  we 
accept  Mr.  SImms'  statement,  and  allow 
Weems  to  have  been  more  trustworthy  than 
usual  in  this  work,  yet  it  Is  not  as  a  study  in 
biography  that  we  turn  to  It.  Its  charm  lies 
In  the  fact  that  of  sober  history  and  biography 
the  author  has  made  an  unusually  entertain- 
ing historical  romance.  SImms  called  It  "  a 
delightful  book  for  the  young."  It  Is  more 
than  this;  it  Is  a  delightful  book  for  anyone 
that  will  read  It. 

One  of  Marlon's  companions  In  arms  was 
General  Peter  Horry,  a  stout  soldier  and  an 
eminent  citizen  of  South  Carolina.  Weems 
persuaded  this  personage  to  turn  over  to  him 
material  which  he  had  collected  with  a  view  to 
writing  the  life  of  his  great  leader  and  friend, 
and  It  is  doubtful  if  the  bluff,  plain  soldier 
was  not  much  relieved  to  shift  the  responsibil- 
ity of  the  undertaking  to  a  more  practised 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  79 

writer.  He  was  unfeignedly  displeased,  how- 
ever, when  the  book  appeared  and  its  title 
page  proclaimed  him  as  the  author,  for  he 
declared  that  he  could  not  recognize  his  own 
sober  notes  in  the  form  which  they  had  taken 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Weems. 

It  is  certain  that  the  book  was  entirely  of 
Weems'  authorship,  and  what  his  motive  was 
in  disclaiming  this  connection  with  it,  is,  and 
will  ever  be  something  of  a  problem.  Whether 
it  was  simply  that  he  wished  to  give  his  book 
the  better  commercial  chance  which  it  would 
have  under  the  name  of  the  widely  known  old 
hero,  or  whether  he  had  some  agreement  with 
the  General  which  the  latter  in  his  indigna- 
tion repudiated,  it  is  difficult  to  say  with  cer- 
tainty. At  any  rate  his  action  was  question- 
able enough  to  bring  a  storm  upon  his  head 
in  the  form  of  spirited  protests  from  the  out- 
raged Horry,  who  endeavored  to  assuage  his 
mortification  and  anger  by  a  series  of  bitter 
letters.  Weems  replied  that  he  had  enlivened 
his  collaborator's  material  and  written  a  "  mil- 
itary  romance."      General   Horry  might   as 


8o  PARSON  WEEMS 

well  have  saved  the  paper  upon  which  he 
wrote  his  denunciatory  letters,  for  a  second 
edition  of  the  book  was  soon  brought  out  In 
which  there  were  no  changes  made  either  in 
the  manner  of  presentation  or  in  the  name  of 
the  author.  In  later  editions,  the  work  was 
credited  to  "  General  Peter  Horry  and  M.  L. 
Weems,"  but  this  Is  the  only  concession  that 
was  made,  and  the  book  has  been  as  widely 
known  as  "  Horry's  Life  of  Marion  '^  as  by 
any  other  signification.'* 

The  preface  to  the  celebrated  "  military 
romance  "  in  which  General  Horry  is  repre- 
sented as  giving  in  the  first  person  his  reasons 
for  writing  a  memoir  of  his  friend,  must  have 
been  amusingly  true  to  life.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  the  reason  for  Horry's  disgust 
with  the  book  and  its  author  was  the  uncanny 
cleverness  with  which  here  and  there  through- 
out the  work  Weems  drew  the  character  of 
the  rough-mannered  but  stout-hearted  old  sol- 
dier and  gentleman.     It  was  a  splendid  bit  of 

"  See  Wm.  Gilmore  Simms,  Views  and  Reviews,  for  an 
account  of  this  literary  feud. 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  8i 

characterization,  which  fell  just  short  enough 
of  caricature  to  be  decent. 

A  feature  in  the  Life  of  Marion  which  is 
especially  pleasing  to  the  reader,  and  which 
must  have  been  one  of  the  reasons  for  the 
great  popularity  of  the  book  in  South  Caro- 
lina, is  the  amount  of  space  which  the  author 
devotes  to  the  words  and  deeds  of  his  second- 
ary characters.  In  this  respect  it  is  a  memoir 
of  Marion's  men  as  much  as  of  the  wily 
"  Swamp  Fox  "  himself.  He  portrays  the 
valorous  feats  of  Sergeants  Jasper  and  Mac- 
donald,  of  Newton  and  a  score  more  non- 
commissioned officers  and  privates,  and  he 
digresses  to  tell  of  the  suffering  and  hardship 
endured  by  the  non-combatant  Whigs  during 
the  British  and  Tory  ascendancy  of  South 
Carolina.  The  battles  of  Marion  were 
fought  largely  within  the  borders  of  South 
Carolina,  and  his  men  were  largely  made  up 
of  natives  of  that  State.  The  book  is  con- 
sequently, for  the  South  Carolinean,  much 
about  home  folks.  It  is  the  ''  Roll  of  the 
Battle  Abbey"  of  that  commonwealth. 


82  PARSON  WEEMS 

The  attacks,  retreats  and  daring  raids  in 
which  Sergeant  Macdonald  and  his  horse 
Selim  are  the  chief  figures  make  this  earliest 
of  American  historical  romances  a  book  of 
delights  for  the  most  critical.  The  author  has 
preserved  anecdotes  and  stories  of  achieve- 
ment of  Marion  and  his  paladins  which  have 
become  a  part  of  our  Revolutionary  tradition. 
His  book  is  an  American  Mort  d' Arthur,  and 
if  one  were  to  begin  a  detailed  quotation  of 
the  vigorous  and  happy  descriptions  of  deeds 
of  arms  which  it  contains,  he  would  never 
have  done.  A  few  selections  must  suffice  to 
give  an  idea  of  the  zest  with  which  Weems 
tells  a  story. 

Marion  captures  an  encampment  about  the 
fires  of  which  he  finds  the  British  drinking, 
fiddling  and  playing  cards.  Hear  Weems 
tell  of  an  incident  of  the  night.  "  One  of 
the  gamblers  (It  is  a  serious  truth) ^  though 
shot  dead,  still  held  the  cards  griped  in  his 
hands.  Led  by  curiosity  to  inspect  this  strange 
sight,  a  dead  gambler,  we  found  that  the 
cards  which  he  held  were  ace,  deuce  and  jack. 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  83 

Clubs  were  trumps.  Holding  high,  low,  jack 
and  the  game,  In  his  own  hand,  he  seemed 
to  be  In  a  fair  way  to  do  well;  but  Marlon 
came  down  upon  him  with  a  trump  that 
spoiled  his  sport,  and  non-suited  him  forever." 

It  seems  that  the  potent  and  seductive  bev- 
erage known  as  "  apple  brandy  "  was  danger- 
ously popular  with  the  American  troopers, 
and  Weems  closes  a  chapter  dealing  wholly 
with  disastrous  blunders  caused  by  overindul- 
gence In  It  with  the  following  Incident.  While 
foraging  near  Georgetown,  South  Carolina, 
six  young  men  of  Marlon's  force  met  an  old 
Tory  whose  most  valuable  possession  was  a 
bottle  of  the  favorite  drink.  He  was  relieved 
of  It,  and  each  of  them,  the  story  says, 
*'  twigged  the  tickler  to  the  tune  of  a  deep 
dram."     The  relation  continues: 

"  Macdonald,  for  his  part,  with  a  face  as 
red  as  a  comet,  reined  up  Sellm,  and  drawing 
his  claymore,  began  to  pitch  and  prance  about, 
cutting  and  slashing  the  empty  air,  as  If  he 
had  a  score  of  enemies  before  him,  and  ever 
and  anon,  roaring  out,  'Huzza,  boys!  damme, 
let's  charge !  ' 


84  PARSON  IVEEMS 

"  '  Charge,  boys !  charge !  '  cried  all  the 
rest,  reining  up  their  horses,  and  flourishing 
their  swords. 

"  '  Where  the  plague  are  you  going  to 
charge  ?  '  asked  the  old  Tory. 

"  '  Why,  into  Georgetown,  right  off,'  re- 
plied they. 

"  '  Well,  you  had  better  have  a  care,  boys, 
how  you  charge  there,  for  I'll  be  blamed  if 
you  do  not  get  yourselves  into  business  pretty 
quick:  for  the  town  is  chock  full  of  red  coats.' 

"  '  Red  coats !  '  one  and  all  they  roared  out, 
'  red  coats !  egad,  that's  just  what  we  want. 
Charge,  boys !  charge !  huzza  for  the  red 
coats,  damme !  ' 

"  Then,  clapping  spurs  to  their  steeds,  off 
went  these  six  young  mad-caps,  huzzaing  and 
flourishing  their  swords,  and  charging  at  full 
tilt  into  a  British  garrison  of  three  hundred 
men! ! 

"  The  enemy  supposing  that  this  was  only 
our  advance,  and  that  General  Marion,  with 
his  whole  force,  would  presently  be  upon 
them,   flew  with  all  speed  to  their  redoubt, 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  85 


and  there  lay,  as  snug  as  fleas  in  a  sheep-skin. 
But  all  of  them  were  not  quite  so  lucky,  for 
several  were  overtaken  and  cut  down  in  the 
streets,  among  whom  was  a  sergeant  major,  a 
stout  greasy  fellow,  who  strove  hard  to  waddle 
away  with  his  bacon;  but  Selim  was  too  quick 
for  him :  and  Macdonald  with  a  back-handed 
stroke  of  his  claymore,  sent  his  frightened 
ghost  to  join  the  MAJORITY." 

In  both  the  Life  of  Washington  and  the 
Life  of  Marion,  Weems  is  in  the  main  de- 
pendable in  his  accounts  of  the  principal 
movements  and  actions  of  the  war.  His  de- 
scriptions of  the  battles,  though  brief  and 
highly  colored  often  by  his  enthusiasm  and 
extreme  partisanship,  are  generally  far  from 
misleading.  It  Is  probable  that  he  drew 
his  information  for  the  military  part  of  his 
works  from  the  gazettes  and  other  seml- 
ofliclal  sources,  and  the  principal  events  In 
the  lives  of  his  heroes  are  also  presented 
truthfully  and  carefully.  There  cannot  be 
two  opinions  of  the  value  of  the  service  of 
that  man  who  tells  in  a  language  understood 


86  PARSON  JVEEMS 

of  the  people  his  country's  history  and  the 
lives  of  its  great  men.  And  this  holds  true 
even  if  it  shall  be  proved  that  he  has  em- 
broidered these  writings  with  details  unde- 
niably picturesque  but  of  uncertain  origin. 

The  Life  of  Franklin  is  a  less  important 
book  than  either  of  those  which  we  have 
spoken  of.  To  begin  with,  a  good  half  of  it, 
in  the  early  editions,  is  simply  the  oft-printed 
and  reprinted  "  Autobiography  "  of  the  great 
philosopher  and  statesman.  Weems  should 
have  written  a  good  biography  of  Franklin. 
The  words  of  Poor  Richard,  the  philosopher 
of  the  middle  class,  were  always  on  his  lips, 
and  he  never  wearied  of  pointing  out  the 
greater  prosperity  which  was  visited  upon  the 
thrifty  Pennsylvanians  than  seemed  possible 
for  the  easy  going  Southerners  to  attain. 
Moreover  he  had  engaged  in  pleasant  per- 
sonal correspondence  with  Franklin  at  the 
time  of  his  struggle  for  Holy  Orders  when 
the  then  Ambassador  to  France  had  good- 
naturedly  tried  to  be  of  service  to  him.     In 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  87 

spite  of  this  predisposition  to  write  a  good 
biography  of  him,  he  yet  in  some  way  fell 
short  of  success  in  his  attempts  to  do  so.  The 
old  buoyancy  and  impulsiveness  is  missing. 

The  later  editions  of  the  book  are  entirely 
by  Weems,  although  in  the  first  half  of  it  he 
has  done  little  more  than  turn  the  "  Auto- 
biography "  into  the  narration  of  a  third  per- 
son. Taken  as  a  whole,  the  book  is  only  mod- 
erately entertaining.  Whether  it  is  the  ab- 
sence of  something  in  Franklin  himself,  or 
whether  a  statesman  and  a  scientist  needs  a 
different  sort  of  biographer  from  the  gossipy, 
moralizing  Weems  it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  it 
is  clear  to  the  most  cursory  reading  of  it  that 
the  Life  of  Franklin  scarcely  escapes  medi- 
ocrity. 

The  Life  of  Penn  is  another  of  Weems' 
less  successful  works,  being  merely  an  en- 
larged moral  treatise  sprinkled  with  scanty 
biographical  and  historical  details.  It  is  ob- 
viously intended  for  the  delectation  of  youth, 
and  the  reader  who  finds  the  prosy  anecdotes 


88  PARSON  JVEEMS 

of  the  youthful  Washington  unpalatable  had 
better  not  touch  the  Life  of  William  Penn, 
for  a  good  third  of  It  consists  of  fatiguing, 
smugly  pious  dialogue  between  the  boy  Penn 
and  his  mother.  Another  third  Is  given  over 
to  moral  disquisitions  from  the  mouths  of  va- 
rious persons,  and  the  rest  to  more  or  less 
dependable  history  and  biography.  There  is 
an  appendix  of  Penn's  Maxims. 

The  only  natural  and  likable  figure  In  this 
book  Is  the  outraged  father  of  the  hero.  The 
old  admiral  rages  without  avail  against  the 
fanaticism  of  his  son,  and  one  cannot  but 
feel  sympathy  for  him  In  his  failure  to  under- 
stand the  peculiarities  of  the  Quaker  tempera- 
ment. The  scenes  between  William  and  the 
sturdy  old  gentleman  are  the  most  Interesting 
as  they  are  the  best  done  of  any  In  the  book. 

One  of  his  outbursts  should  be  quoted,  Il- 
lustrating as  It  does  the  sane  point  of  view 
of  the  normally  good  man.  The  father  Is  ad- 
juring the  son  not  to  throw  away  his  many 
opportunities  for  worldly  advancement  by  ad- 
hesion to  a  fanatical  sect,  and  he  cries  out  in 


THE  BIOGRAPHIES  89 

his  bewilderment:  "But  why,  in  the  name 
of  God,  can't  you  be  good  and  happy  as  a 
great  man,  as  well  as  a  mean  one ;  and  by 
dressing  like  a  gentleman  as  well  as  like  a 
monk?  Can  Tom  Loe  have  made  such  a 
blockhead  of  you,  as  to  make  you  believe  it  a 
sin  to  wear  a  suit  of  clothes  in  the  fashion?  " 
And  again:  "  Can  they  be  such  fools  as  to 
think  that  religion  has  anything  to  do  with 
the  color  and  cut  of  people's  clothes?  "  The 
reader's  sympathies  throughout  the  argument 
are  undisguisedly  with  this  irate  representa- 
tive of  unregenerate  man. 

The  one  extenuation  for  page  after  page 
of  pietistical  dialogue  is  that  in  their  fabrica- 
tion, Weems  is  intensely  in  earnest  and  in- 
tensely anxious  to  be  of  service  in  setting  a 
high  ideal  for  American  children.  When  he 
writes  in  terms  of  exaggerated  tenderness  of 
Lady  Penn's  love  and  care  for  her  son,  one 
feels  that  he  has  in  mind  his  own  children  and 
their  upbringing.  He  was  the  kindest  and 
most  devoted  of  fathers  himself,  so  that  when 
his  overdone  piety  fails  to  touch  an  answering 


90  PARSON  JVEEMS 

chord,   the  reader  is  ready  to   forgive  him, 
knowing  the  excellence  of  his  intention. 

It  would  not  be  justice  to  Weems  to  say 
that  his  Life  of  Penn  is  not  a  good  book.  It 
is  not  a  good  biography  for  the  reason  that 
one-half  of  it  is  dialogue  which  had  its  birth 
in  the  brain  of  the  author.  It  is,  however,  a 
good  book,  for  whenever  Weems  put  his  pen 
to  paper  a  certain  enthusiasm  and  zest  were 
born  which  made  readable  conversations  and 
disquisitions  which  in  another  writer  would  be 
"  as  dry  as  the  remainder  biscuit  after  a  voy- 
age." In  him  they  are  alive  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, and  once  more  style  has  its  triumph. 


VII 
THE  PAMPHLETS 

It  Is  often  said  truly  that  Weems'  pam- 
phlets are  among  the  curiosities  of  American 
literature,  but  it  would  be  doing  their  author 
an  injustice  if  anyone  were  left  with  the  im- 
pression that  they  were  no  more  than  this. 
For  in  the  generation  of  their  birth  and  great- 
est circulation,  these  coarse,  stinging  invectives 
against  the  grosser  vices  influenced  their  read- 
ers to  a  degree  that  would  have  been  impos- 
sible of  accomplishment  in  quiet,  dignified 
sermons  or  tracts,  In  whatsoever  trenchant  or 
logical  form  their  arguments  might  have  been 
put  forth.  Contemporary  writers  allow  them 
to  have  been  notable  agents  for  good  In  the 
hands  of  the  half  educated,  emotional  classes 
to  whom  their  crudity  of  manner  and  matter 
was  no  hindrance  to  an  appreciation  of  the 
very  obvious  lesson  In  the  author's  mind  and 
heart. 


92  PARSON  WEEMS 

The  earliest  of  the  tracts,  and  undoubtedly 
a  very  Interesting  one  If  a  copy  of  It  could  be 
found,  Is  Onania,  the  "  odd  publication " 
which,  according  to  William  Duke  writing  a 
few  days  after  Its  appearance  In  June,  1792, 
brought  upon  Its  writer  "  a  good  deal  of  ridi- 
cule as  well  as  serious  blame."  The  nature  of 
the  subject  makes  discussion  of  the  tract  un- 
desirable here,  but  one  can  Imagine  Weems' 
contempt  for  those  who  ridiculed  him,  and 
the  Indignant  sarcasm  with  which  he  must 
have  answered  those  who  blamed  him  for  his 
plain  speaking  In  the  cause  of  public  health 
and  morals.  He  was  a  hundred  years  before 
his  time  in  this  particular  form  of  endeavor. 

For  many  reasons,  the  most  remarkable  of 
the  Weems'  pamphlets  Is  that  one  called 
God's  Revenge  against  Gambling,  and  this  Is 
so  not  because  It  Is  the  most  flambuoyant  and 
lurid  of  them  In  design,  but  rather  for  the 
contrary  reason.  It  probably  lost  In  effective- 
ness on  account  of  Its  comparative  pallor,  but 
this  loss  was  Its  gain  from  a  literary  stand- 
point.    It  Is  the  most  finished  and  pleasing  of 


THE  PAMPHLETS  93 

the  tractates  which  claim  Weems  as  their  au- 
thor. It  is  closely  reasoned  on  the  purely 
ethical  grounds  of  the  gambling  question,  and 
it  contains  passages  which  attain  almost  to 
nobility  of  expression.  The  dialogue,  a  fa- 
vorite device  with  Weems,  has  dramatic 
movement  and  a  certain  intensity  of  feeling. 
Some  of  the  "  cases  "  illustrating  the  evil  re- 
sults of  gambling  are  presented  with  a  pathos 
not  devoid  of  delicacy,  a  more  convincing 
method  than  the  dulling  bludgeon  strokes 
which  follow  thick  and  fast  in  the  form  of 
"  cases  "  in  others  of  the  pamphlets.  A  good 
example  of  this  method  occurs  in  the  dialogue 
in  which  he  has  been  lauding  the  excellencies 
of  a  well-known  gentleman  of  Maryland. 
The  contrast,  of  course,  is  evident  mechanism, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  effective  for  being  so. 

"  But  please  to  stand  by,  Mr.  Goodloe 
Harper,  for  here  pushes  forward  a  gambler, 
I  suppose,  but  so  rumpled  and  bedirted  both 
in  hair  and  hide,  that  but  for  his  size,  I  should 
as  lieve  take  him  for  a  mole  as  a  man.  Well, 
sir,  who  are  you?  " 


94  PARSON  fVEEMS 

''  A  man,  sir." 

'^  But  are  you  sure  of  that,  sir?  for,  to  be 
candid,  you  come  in  so  '  questionable  a  shape  ' 
that  I  am  put  to  a  stand." 

"  Yes,  I  am  a  Man,  or  rather  a  mad-Man. 
I  am  the  thing,  sir,  they  call  a  gambler." 

''  O !  Well  then,  sir,  go  on  for  heaven^s 
sake,  for  you  look  full  well  enough  for  a 
gambler;  please,  sir,  to  go  on." 

And  with  this  introduction  the  unfortunate 
gambler  relates  with  no  little  effect  the  story 
of  a  fall  from  comfortable  circumstances  to 
his  present  sad  estate.  Of  all  the  sermons 
of  Parson  Weems  which  have  been  preserved, 
this  against  gambling  is  the  single  one  that 
has  kept  its  appeal  for  the  more  sophisticated 
reader  of  a  later  generation. 

In  God^s  Revenge  Against  Adultery,  the 
author  writes  with  some  circumstance  of  the 
errors  and  punishment  of  two  unhappy 
women,  whose  names,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  were 
altered  before  their  disgrace  was  thus  adver- 
tised in  a  pamphlet  which  had  an  enormous 
sale  in  all  parts  of  the  country.     The  practice 


THE  PAMPHLETS  95 

of  inculcating  virtue  by  presenting  "  horrible 
examples  "  of  vice,  here  reaches  the  limit  of 
its  possibilities.  The  effect  is  in  some  measure 
destroyed  for  the  critical  reader  by  the  au- 
thor's extravagance,  for  when  he  is  called 
upon  to  curse  and  bewail  the  villainy  of  man, 
a  greatly  different  attitude  of  mind  is  induced 
in  him  by  the  bathos  of  attendant  circum- 
stances. This  is  decidedly  the  most  unpleas- 
ant of  his  writings  but  there  is  no  reason  for 
doubting  the  statement  that  it  was  the  most 
effective  of  them. 

The  Drunkard's  Looking  Glass,  besides 
being  a  powerful  sermon  in  which  John 
Barleycorn  is  given  a  sad  drubbing,  is  on 
account  of  the  slang  of  the  period  with  which 
its  pages  are  studded,  a  document  of  some  in- 
terest to  the  antiquarian.  We  learn,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  equivalents  for  present-day 
phrases  indicative  of  the  stages  of  intoxica- 
tion were  something  like  these :  first,  the 
drunkard  has  a  "  drop  in  his  eye,"  then,  he 
becomes  "  half  shaved,"  and  so  finally  he  is 
"  quite  capsized,"  or  "  snug  under  the  table 


96  PARSON  WEEMS 

with  the  dogs."  He  also  becomes  "  swipy," 
and  is  "  cut,"  or  "  cut  in  the  craw."  This  is 
not  the  only  age  which  revels"  in  nice  dis- 
tinctions in  the  progress  of  the  effects  of 
''  Demon  Rum." 

There  are  passages  throughout  this  early 
bit  of  temperance  reform  literature  which  are 
of  a  degree  of  coarseness  indescribable  by 
comparison  to  anything  in  printed  English. 
The  language  which  from  every  page  cries 
out  to  one  is  the  sort  that  may  be  heard  from 
a  crew  of  drunken  stevedores  in  the  height  of 
their  inebriation,  and  this  statement  is  rather 
rough  on  the  stevedores  at  that.  Weems  was 
a  close  observer  of  the  people  with  whom  his 
roving  life  threw  him  in  contact,  and  he  has 
here  described  them  so  truly  that  the  reader 
is  almost  convinced  of  their  physical  nearness. 
The  author's  depiction  of  a  man  in  the  "  stu- 
pid or  torpid  stage,"  with  all  the  loathsome 
consequences,  is  a  wonderful  and  at  the  same 
time  a  disgustingly  crude  bit  of  realistic  writ- 
ing. So  much  is  this  so  that  in  spite  of  the 
admiration  which  it  compels  from  the  stand- 


'^  Tur. 

^Jpnuilarcr s  Ijooliing' G lass. 

i.  '■■ " 

RErLF.cVrVlG 

A  FAniirCI,  LIKENESS 

OF 

t 

THE  DRUNKARD, 

IN 
^,     SUSDRY  VERY  INTER  eI^TING  ATTITUDES.; 

WITH     I.TVKI..Y     REPKESENTATUlNS 
OF     THE     MWY     ST>\N'il-:    C  Vl'KRS    WM ICII   HF.  CCT* 
AT  IJIKFEUENT  STAGES  OF  HIS  DISlJASE  ;         • 

As  first. 
/      MTien  he  has  onlv  '•  A  DROP  IN  IIIS  EYE,» 
'  .  Secntid,       ,  » 

T\IIEN  HE  IS  '•  II AEF  SUATED," 
.    ?  TMi-d, 

"\^Tien  \ik  is  {^euin^  •'  A  liitle  on  the  Staggers  or  so/* 
And  fourth  and  Jlflh,   cmd  so  on,  .s 

TILL  UE  IS  '•  QL  iTE  CAPblZED," 

OR, 

«  Snug  under  the  Table  with  the  Dogs,'* 
Can   "  Slick  lo  the  FLOOR  witlioiU  holdins  ony  «'^* 


BY  M.  L.  AVEEMS, 

Author  of  the  Lfe  of  iVukhington,  &c. 


«£COND  EDITIOV.  ORE  VTI.V  IMrBOVED.  -» 


■f 


z 


irr'mo  'I'-u-inhj-Jive  cents.}  •*=> 

18i3. 


PHOTOGRAPHIC   REPRODUCTION    OF   THE   TITLE    PAGE   OF   VVEEMS' 

POWERFUL    AND    REALISTIC    PAMPHLET    AGAINST    THE 

PREVAILING  VICE  OF  HIS  GENERATION.      REDUCED. 


THE  PAMPHLETS  97 

point  of  literary  effect,  one  does  not  care  to 
read  a  second  time  the  page  which  contains  it. 

In  God's  Revenge  Against  Murder,  the  evil 
influence  of  low  environment  and  of  the  pa- 
rental neglect  of  children  alike  conspire  to  the 
undoing  of  a  young  South  Carolinian  and  the 
hapless  wife  whom  he  kills  with  shocking 
brutality.  It  is  like  the  other  pamphlets  in 
its  description  of  sordid  wretchedness,  and 
like  them,  too,  in  its  undoubted  power,  but 
except  that  it  possesses  some  local  historical 
interest,  there  is  little  more  that  need  be  said 
about  it. 

The  Philanthropist,  an  olive  branch  held 
out  to  opposing  "  Adamsites  and  Jefferson- 
ians,"  has  an  interest  of  its  own  in  that  it 
has  to  do  with  the  stirring  political  questions 
of  that  day.  Its  sane  treatment  of  the  Issues 
won  for  it  a  general  commendation.  God's 
Revenge  Against  Duelling  and  the  Bad  Wife's 
Looking  Glass  are  much  of  a  type  with  the 
other  moral  dissertations  which  have  been 
described. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  turn  from  these  barbaric 


98  PARSON  WEEMS 

and  In  the  main  successful  attempts  to  badger 
people  into  an  observance  of  the  Decalogue 
to  that  one  of  Weems'  pamphlets  which  is  a 
type  of  his  jocularly  earnest  nature.  The 
title,  indicative  of  its  style  and  contents,  is 
Hymen's  Recruiting  Sergeant;  or  the  New 
Matrimonial  Tat-too  for  Old  Bachelors.  As 
early  as  1805  ''  we  find  him  suggesting  to  a 
publisher  that  a  third  edition  of  the  pamphlet 
consisting  of  1000  copies  would  be  profitable, 
and  at  as  late  a  date  as  1840,  new  editions 
were  being  issued  by  different  publishers  in 
various  parts  of  the  country. 

In  this  seriously  meant  entreaty  to  the  un- 
married to  enter  upon  and  enjoy  the  felicities 
of  the  "  honorable  estate,"  he  exhorts  in 
humorous  fashion  the  "  Citizen  Bachelor  "  to 
find  himself  a  wife,  quoting  Scripture,  para- 
phrasing the  Book  of  Proverbs  and  calling 
loudly  upon  Common  Sense  to  support  him  in 
his  crusade  against  the  state  of  bachelordom. 
The  letter  dedicatory  is  typical  of  the  lively, 


85 


American  Historical  Record,  vol.  2,  Feb.  1873,  p.  82. 


THE  PAMPHLETS  99 

almost  frolicsome,  style  of  the  book,  and  at 
the  risk  of  taking  up  too  much  space  it  is 
copied  here,  for  surely  there  is  nothing  in  our 
literature  quite  so  curious  as  this  little  book. 

"  TO  ALL  THE  SINGLES,  WHETHER  MAS- 
CULINES OR  FEMININES,  THROUGHOUT  THE 
UNITED  STATES. 

"  Dear  Gentles,  I  am  very  clear  that 
our  Yankee  heroes  are  made  of  at  least,  as 
good  stuff  as  any  the  best  of  the  beef  or 
frog-eating  gentry  on  the  other  side  of  the 
water.  But  neither  this,  nor  all  our  fine 
speeches  to  our  President,  nor  all  his  fine 
speeches  to  us  again,  will  ever  save  us  from 
the  British  gripe  or  Carmagnole  hug,  while 
they  can  outnumber  us,  ten  to  one!  No,  my 
friends,  'tis  population,  'tis  population  alone, 
can  save  our  bacon. 

List  then,  ye  bach'lors,  and  ye  maidens  fair, 

If  truly  you  do  love  your  country  dear; 

O,  list  with  rapture  to  the  great  decree, 

Which  thus  in  Genesis  you  all  may  see: 

'  Marry,  and  raise  up  soldiers,  might  and  main,' 

Then  laugh,  you  may,  at  England,  France  and  Spain. 


loo  PARSON  WEEMS 

"  Wishing  you  all,  the  hearing  ear — the  be- 
lieving heart — and  a  saving  antipathy  to  apes, 
"  I  remain  yours,  dear  Gentles, 
"  In  the  bonds  of 

"  Love  and  Matrimony, 

"  M.  L.  Weems." 

It  is  evident  that  the  cry  of  "  race  suicide  " 
is  as  old  as  the  nation. 

Unfortunately,  many  of  the  apposite  anec- 
dotes and  parallels  which  the  author  calls  to 
his  service  in  this  pamphlet  are  not  suitable 
for  quotation,  and  this  is  not  because  there  is 
any  vicious  intent  in  his  relation  of  them,  but 
for  the  reason  that  for  ill  or  good  this  age 
has  elected  to  close  its  ears  to  frank  mention 
of  the  elemental  facts  of  life.  Weems  finds 
three  prime  reasons  for  matrimony — pleasure, 
rosy  health  and  prosperity,  and  upon  each  of 
them  he  enlarges  in  a  number  of  delightful 
essays,  drawing  in  high  colors  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  bachelor's  "  silent  supper,"  "  cold 
sheets  "  and  generally  disconsolate  condition, 
and  the  comforts  and  delights  which  are  the 


THE  PAMPHLETS  xoi 

lot  of  the  benedict.  One  may  not  say  which 
is  the  better  reading,  Master  Burton's  melan- 
cholic views  on  the  "  miseries  of  marriage  " 
or  these  "  sweet  persuasives  to  wedlock  "  of 
good  Parson  Weems. 

These  are  the  works  of  the  celebrated 
**  Parson  Weems."  '^  We  are  not  troubled 
to  find  for  him  a  place  in  the  family  of  Ameri- 
can authors.  He  is  one  of  those  that  will  not 
exactly  fit  in  with  any  group  of  them,  whether 
arranged  by  period,  by  section  or  by  similarity 
of  product.  His  biographies  are  read  to  some 
extent  to-day,  three  generations  after  his 
death,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  they  will 
continue  to  be  read  to  a  similar  extent  as  long 
as  people  are  interested  in  the  beginnings  of 

**  For  readable  accounts  of  Weems'  life,  see  Duyckink's 
"  Cyclopsedia,"  Arthur  P.  Gray  in  Hayden's  "  Virginia 
Genealogies,"  also  Hayden  in  the  same  work,  Ludwig 
Lewisohn  in  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  August  30, 
1903,  and  an  all  too  short  article,  by  W.  B.  Norris,  in 
National  Magazine,  February,  1910.  The  late  Paul  Leices- 
ter Ford  was,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  engaged  upon  a 
monograph  on  Weems,  which  he  intended  to  issue  in  con- 
nection with  his  own  book.  The  True  George  Washington. 


I02  PARSON  WEE  MS 

this  nation.  And  if  his  works  were  to  be 
utterly  forgotten,  the  evidence  of  his  existence 
would  still  be  seen  in  the  legendary  history  of 
the  nation.  A  great  number  of  the  stories  of 
the  Revolution  which  to-day  are  the  heritage 
of  the  American  child  were,  if  not  actually 
first  told  by  Weems,  at  least  preserved  from 
oblivion  and  sown  broadcast  in  the  hearts  and 
memories  of  the  people  by  means  of  his  writ- 
ings. This  man  wrote  the  earliest  biographies 
of  four  of  the  nation's  heroes,  and  wrote  them 
so  well  that  he  moulded  many  of  the  national 
legends;  to  an  age  that  needed  more  of  his 
kind,  he  preached  virtue  and  decent  living  in 
language  that  gripped  and  seared  and  sick- 
ened; and  finally  after  his  death  himself  be- 
came the  center  of  a  legend.  This  is  the 
excuse  for  writing  of  Mason  Locke  Weems. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  22 

Adams,  Samuel  and  John,  printers, 

38 
Age  of  Reaf^nn,  47 
All  Hallows'  Parish,  24,  27,  29,  31, 

33 
All  Saints'  Parish,  13 
Allen,    Mr.,    43 
American    Prot't   Episcopal 

Preacher,  39 
Annapolis,    36,    59 

B 

Bad  Wife's  Looking  Glass,  97 

Beach,  The  Rev.  Abrara,  38 

Beaufort,  S.   C,  55 

Bellas.  H.  H.,  11 

"  Belle    Air,"    Prince    Wm.     Co., 

Va.,  40,   55,  56 
Biographies,  The,  64 

0 

Cadwaladers,  descendants  of  Wil- 
liamina  Wem\'ss,  12 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  21,  23, 
26 

Carey,  Matthew,  38,  40,  53 

Charleston,  S.  C,  73 

Cherry  Tree  anecdote,  6,  65,  67 

Chester,  Bishop  of,  23,  26 

Claggett,  T.  J.,  Bp.  of  Md.,  35,  38 

Coleman,  Mr.  (the  Rev.  John),  59 

Corporation  for  the  Relief  of  Wid- 
ows, etc.,  24 

Cowpens,  Battle  of,  72,  73 

Craik,  I>r.,  66 

D 

Danish  Church,  Bishops  of,  22 

Danish  orders,  23 

Danish  minister,  22 

Davis,  John,  Travels  in  Amer- 
ica, 30,  43,  45 

Diary  of  William  Duke,  29,  31-34, 
,.    36,  39,  40,   46,   59,   92 

Dunkard'8  Looking  Olass,  55,  95 

Duelling,  Ood's  Revenge 
Against,  97 


Duke,  The  Rev.  Wm.,  28,  31-34,  36- 

38,  46,  49,  50 
Duke   Street  Chapel,    Westminster, 

23 
Dumfries,  Va.,  40,  49,  55 

E 

Edinburgh,  Univ.  of,  16 
Elkton,  Md.,  36,  37 
Enabling  Act,  23 
Ewell,  Fanny,  40 
Ewell,  Jesse,  40 


Fairfax  Court  House,  47 

Franklin,  Autobiography  of,  86,  87 

Franklin,    Life    of,  'by    M.     L. 

Weems,  86,  87 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  18,  20,  21,  39, 

86,  87 
Franklin  correspondence,  19,  20 
Franklin   papers.    Calendar  of,    16, 

18 

G 

Oambling,  God's  Revenge 

Against,  92 
Gantt,   The  Rev.   Edward,   Jr.,   20, 

22,  23,  26 
Goldsboroughs,        descendants       of 

Williamina  Wemyss,   12 

H 

Hague,  The,  22 
Harrison,  Margaret,  13 
Herring  Creek,  11 
Hill,  Abell,  13 
Hill,  Hester,  13 
Hill,  Susannah,  13 
Horry,    General   Peter,    77-80 
Hymen's    Recruiting    Sergeant, 
97 


James,   St.,   Parish,  13 

Jenifer,  Daniel  of  St.  Thomas,  14 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  68 
Locke,    Dr.    William,    12,    13 


I04 


INDEX 


Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  69 
London,   Bishop  of,  23,  25 

M 

Macduff,  12 

Marion,  General  Francis,  82 

Marion,     Life     of,     by     M.     L, 

Weems,  62,  77,  78,  80,  81,  85 
Marshall,  John,  53,  54 
"  Marshall  Seat,"  11 
"  Marshes  Seat,"  11 
Massey,  The  Rev.  Lee,  67 
Meade,  Wm.,  Bishop  of  Va.,  14,  15, 

45    46    49 
"  Moore  Hall,"  12,  38 
Moore,  Rebecca,  12 
Moore,  William,  12 
Moores,  descendants  of  Williamina 

Wemyss,  12 
"  Mt.  Vernon,"  67 
Mt.  Vernon  Parish,  41,  43 
Murder,  God's  Revenge 

Against,  97 

N 

Nantes,  France,  17 
Negroes,  Work  among,  30 
North  Elk  Parish,  36 


Oath  of  Allegiance,  20 
Onania,  59,  92 


Paine,   Tom,   47,   48 

Pamphlets,  The,  91 

Parliament  of  Eng.,  23 

Penn,   William,  88,  89 

Penn,  Admiral,  88 

Penn,  Lady,  89 

Penn,  Life  of,  by  M.  L.  Weems, 

87,  88,  90 
Penn's  Maxims,  88 
Philadelphia,  37 
Philadelphia,  College  of,  12 
Philanthropist,  The,  59,  60,  97 
Pohick  Church,  41,   42,  43 
Protestant   Epis.   Church,   12,   19 
Protestant  Epis.  Church  in  Va.,  41 

R 

Revolutionary  War,  17 
Reynolds,  Harriet,  11 


Ridgeleys,     descendants     of     Wil- 
liamina Wemyss,   12 


Saratoga,  Battle  of,  75 

Seabury,  Samuel,  Bishop  of  Conn., 

20,    24 
Simms,  W.  G.,  77,  78,  80 
Smith,  Wm.,  D.   D.,  12 
Smiths,  descendants  of  Williamina 

Wemyss,   12 
Swamp  Fox  (General  Marion),  81 


Tarleton,  Colonel,  72,  73 
Trinity  Church,  New  York,  38 
Truro  Parish,  Va.,  41 

U 
Upper  Marlboro,  34 

W 

Washington,  Colonel,  73 

Washington,  George,  6,  42,  58,  64, 
65-71 

Washington,  Life  of,  by  Mar- 
shall, 53,  54,  65 

Washington,  Life  of,  by  Ram- 
say, 65 

Washington,  Life  of,  by  Weems, 
5,   14,  42,  60,  62,  63,  68,  77,  85 

Way  to  Wealth,  39 

Wavne,  Caleb  P.,  53 

Weems,  David,  11,  12,  13 

Weems,  David,  Jr.,  13 

Weems,  James,  11,  13 

Weems,  Mason  Locke:  birth,  11; 
early  life,  14;  medical  career, 
16,  18;  ordination,  19-26;  par- 
ish priest,  28;  publishing  ven- 
tures, authorship,  38;  mar- 
riage, 40;  book  peddler,  41; 
as  a  preacher,  44;  death,  55; 
author,  57;  biographical 
works,  65;  pamphlets,  91; 
place  in  literature,   101 

Wemyss,  David,  3d  Earl  of,  11 

Wemvss,  Williamina,  11,  12,  13,  38 

Wesley,  John,  29,  45 

Westminster  Parish,  Md.,  27,  29,  36 

White,  William,  Bishop  of  Penn- 
svlvania,  24 

Wilmington,   Del.,  37 

"  Wood  Yard,"  38 


DATE  DUE 

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GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

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COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 

Hill  mil  mil 


0038507765 


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